miring the exceeding greatness of the ships, and their warlike order. The greatest kept the outside next the enemy, like strong castles, fearing no assault; the lesser placed in the middle ward."* At this time the English might regret the loss of Calais; but never were the councils of England more wisely directed. The Spanish ships, as castles pitched in the sea, had their bulks so planked with great beams, that bullets might strike and stick, but never pass through, so that little availed the English cannon, except only in playing on their masts and tackling." In this respect they seemed as invulnerable as the floating batteries employed against Gibraltar. And their height was such, that our bravest seamen were against any attempt at boarding them. These things had been well perpended by Elizabeth's ministers, and the lord admiral was instructed to convert eight of his worst vessels into fire ships. The orders arrived in such good time, and were obeyed with such alacrity, that within thirty hours after the enemy had cast anchor off Calais these ships were disburdened of all that was worth saving, filled with combustibles, and all their ordnance charged; and their sides being smeared with pitch, rosin, and wildfire, they were sent, in the dead of the night, with wind and tide, against the Spanish fleet; which when the Spaniards saw, the whole sea glittering and shining with the flames thereof, they remembered those terrible fire-ships which had been used in the Scheldt, and the fearful cry of The fire of Antwerp!"" ran through the fleet. They apprehended not the danger of fire alone, but all the evils that "deadly engines and murderous inventions" could inflict: some cut their cables; others let their hawsers slip, and in haste, fear, and confusion, put to sea, "happiest they who could first be gone, though few or none could tell which course to take." +

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* Stowe, 748. "Fresh victuals were straight brought aboard. Captains and cavaliers might have what they would for their money, and gave the French so liberally, that within twelve hours an egg was worth sixpence, besides thanks."

+ Hakluyt, 601. Strype, 861. Camden, 415. Grimstone, 1003. Bor. 324.

July In this confusion, the largest of the galleasses, 29. commanded by D. Hugo de Moncada ran foul of another ship, lost her rudder, floated about at the mercy of the tide, and, making the next morning for Calais, as well as she could, ran upon the sands. There she was presently assailed by the English small craft, who lay battering her with their guns, but dared not attempt to board, till the admiral sent an hundred men in his boats, under sir Amias Preston. The Spaniards made a brave resistance, hoping presently to be succoured by the prince of Parma, and the action was for a long time doubtful. At length Moncada was shot through the head, the galleas was carried by boarding, and most of the Spaniards, leaping into the sea, were drowned. The Veeder of the fleet, D. Antonio de Manrique, was one of those who reached the shore; and he was the first person that carried certain news to Spain of their now vincible navy." This huge bottom, manned with 400 soldiers and 300 galley-slaves, had also 50,000 ducats on board; "a booty," says Speed, "well fitting the English soldiers' affections." Having ransacked all, and freed the slaves from their miserable fetters, they were about to set that vessel of emptiness on fire; but the governor of Calais would not permit this, fearing, it is said, the damage that might thereupon ensue to the town and haven. He fired, therefore, upon the captors, and the ship and ordnance became his prize.

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The duke, when the fire-ships were first perceived, had ordered the whole fleet to weigh anchor and stand off to sea, and when the danger was over, return every ship to its former station. The first part of this order they were too much alarmed to wait for or to heed; and when he returned himself, and fired a signal for others to follow his example, the gun was heard by few, "because they were scattered all about, and driven by fear, some of them into the wide sea, and some among the shoals of Flanders." Little broken yet in strength, though now losing fast the hope and the con

*Hakluyt, Strype, Camden, ut supra.

fidence with which they had set forth, they ranged themselves again in order off Gravelines; and there they were bravely attacked. Drake and Fenner were the first who assailed them: Fenton, Southwell, Beeston, Cross, and Reyman followed; and then the lord admiral came up, with lord Thomas Howard and lord Sheffield. They got the wind of the enemy, who were now cut off from Calais roads, and preferred any inconvenience rather than change their array or separate their force, standing only upon their defence. "And albeit there were many excellent and warlike ships in the English fleet, yet scarce were there two or three and twenty among them all which matched ninety of the Spanish ships in bigness, or could conveniently assault them. Wherefore, using their prerogative of nimble steerage, whereby they could turn and wield themselves with the wind which way they listed, they came oftentimes very near upon the Spaniards, and charged them so sore, that now and then they were but a pike's length asunder; and so continually giving them one broadside after another, they discharged all their shot, both great and small, upon them, spending a whole day, from morning till night, in that violent kind of conflict." "We had such advantage," says lord Monmouth, "both of wind and tide, that we had a glorious day of them, continuing fight from four o'clock in the morning till five or six at night." During this action, the Spaniards, "lying close under their fighting sails," passed Dunkirk with a south-west wind, close followed by their enemies. Their great ships were found vulnerable in the close action of that day; many of them were pierced through and through between wind and water: one was sunk by captain Cross, in the Hope: from the few of her people who were saved, it was learnt that one of her officers, having proposed to strike, was put to death by another; the brother of the slain instantly avenged his death, and then the ship went down. Two others are believed to have sunk. The St. Philip and

July

31.

the St. Matthew, both Portugueze galleons, were much shattered. D. Diego de Pimentel, in the latter, endeavoured to assist the former, but in vain; for being

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sore battered with many great shot by Seymour and Winter," and the mast shot away, the St. Philip was driven near Ostend: as a last chance, the officers endeavoured to make for a Flemish port; but finding it impossible to bring the ship into any friendly harbour, they got to Ostend in the boats, and the galleon was taken possession of from Flushing. The St. Matthew suffered so much, and leaked so fast, that the duke sent a boat to bring Pimentel and some of the chief persons on board his own ship. A sense of honour withheld them from abandoning their men, and looking solely to the preservation of their own lives. The duke then charged them to keep company with him; but this was impossible: in that danger the one vessel could not slacken its course, and the other could make little way; for the water came in so fast, that fifty men were employed at the pumps. Seeing himself thus necessarily forsaken, Pimentel resolved to run aground on the Flemish coast; but here he was discovered by some of the Dutch ships, which had their station upon that coast; and, after losing some forty of his men in vain resistance, struck to Pieter Van der Does. The ship sunk in one of the Zeeland ports ; and its flag was suspended as a trophy in St. Peter's church at Leyden ; a city which had been in no light degree beholden for its own glorious deliverance to the illustrious family of Dousa.

*

Still the duke did not despair of eventual success : an unexpected respite was afforded him; for the English had expended their ammunition, and were forced to send for a supply; and taking advantage of a strong westnorth-wester, the Armada made an effort to regain his position in the straits, that the prince might join them. The spirit in which this resolution was taken was better than the seamanship: that wind carried them

* Bor. 325. Hakluyt, 602, 603. Camden, 415. Grimstone, 1004.

FLIGHT OF THE ARMADA.

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towards the shallows and sands on the Zeeland coast; and glad were they when it came to the south and enabled them to avoid the dangers by which they must otherwise soon have found themselves surrounded. That day Drake wrote to Walsingham,-" We have the army of Spain before us, and mind to wrestle a pull with him. There was never any thing pleased better than seeing the enemy flying with a southerly wind to the northward. I doubt not, but ere it be long, so to handle the matter with the duke of Sidonia, that he shall wish himself at St. Mary's Port, among his vine trees. God give us grace to depend upon him; so shall we not doubt victory, for our cause is good." But the hopes which Drake entertained of a brilliant victory * were not to be fulfilled. Enough had been achieved by the councils and the hand of man. That providence which had confounded the devices of the enemy effected by the agency of the elements the rest. The duke advised with his officers in the evening what course, after these unexpected disasters, should be pursued. They were now experimentally convinced that the English excelled them in naval strength. Several of their largest ships had been lost, others were greatly damaged there was no port to which they could repair; and to force their way through the victorious English fleet, then in sight, and amounting to 140 sail, was

"And here," says Sir William Monson, "was opportunity offered us to have followed the victory upon them; for if we had once more offered them fight, the general, it was thought, by persuasion of his confessor, was determined to yield; whose example, 't is very likely, would have made the rest to have done the like. But this opportunity was lost; not through the negligence or backwardness of the lord admiral, but merely through the want of providence in those that had the charge of furnishing and providing for the fleet. For at that time of so great advantage, when they came to examine their provisions, they found a general scarcity of powder and' shot, for want whereof they were forced to return home. Another opportunity was lost, not much inferior to the other, by not sending part of our fleet to the west of Ireland, where the Spaniards, of necessity, were to pass, after so many dangers and disasters as they had endured. If we had been so happy as to have followed their course, as it was both thought and discoursed of, we had been absolutely victorious over this great and formidable navy, for they were brought to that necessity, that they would willingly have yielded, as divers of them confessed that were shipwrecked in Ireland. By this we may see how weak and feeble the designs of man are in respect of the Creator; and how indifferently he dealt betwixt the two nations, sometimes giving one, sometimes the other, the advantage, yet so that He only ordered the battle."-Churchill's Collection, iii. 159.