Philip II. of Spain 28

Philip II. of Spain 28

The men were once more confessed

and absolved, and finally on July 22 (N.S.), 1588, the great fleet left

Corunna harbour, not without grave misgivings of the timid duke, which

were openly scoffed at by the sailors. The whole fleet consisted of 131

sail, with 7050 sailors, 17,000 soldiers, and 1300 officers,

gentlemen-adventurers, priests, and servants. The four galleys soon

found themselves unable to live through the Biscay seas and abandoned

the Armada, taking refuge in various French and Spanish ports. The rest

of the fleet first sighted the Lizard at four o’clock in the afternoon

of Friday, July 30 (N.S.). The moment land was discovered the blessed

flag with the crucifix, the Virgin, and the Magdalen was hoisted, and

signals fired that every man on board the fleet should join in prayer.

Then a council was called, and for the first time the admirals were

informed of the king’s orders. They were dismayed to find that they were

to sail up the Channel to the Straits of Dover, leaving Plymouth, and

perhaps the English fleet, behind them untouched. Recalde warned the

duke against ruining the king’s cause by a too slavish obedience to his

orders, and almost violently urged him to attack and take Plymouth

before going further. The duke replied that “the king had ordered him

strictly to join hands with Parma before anything else, and he had no

discretion in the matter; nor was he so vain as to suppose that the

king would allow him to violate his commands on this, his first

expedition.” The commanders, however, sufficiently worked on the duke’s

fears to prevail upon him to write to the king that night, saying that

as he had not received any reply from Parma to all his despatches, he

purposed to remain off the Isle of Wight until he heard whether the

Flemish forces were quite ready, because, as they had no ports of refuge

in the Channel, he could not wait for Parma off the shoally Flemish

coast.

 

The first panic in England had been succeeded by feverish activity; all

that could inflame patriotic zeal was done. The Spaniards, it was said,

were bringing cargoes of scourges and instruments of torture, all adults

were to be put to death, and 7000 wet-nurses were coming in the Armada

to suckle the orphan infants. Such nonsense as this was firmly believed,

and the echoes of it have not even yet entirely died out. Corporations

and individuals vied with each other in providing means for defence; but

withal the land forces, assembled in two _corps d’armée_, one on each

side of the Thames, were but hasty levies, half drilled and armed, and

commanded by the incompetent Leicester. The queen was personally

popular, but if Parma had landed and she had fallen, it is probable that

there would have been no great resistance on the part of the people at

large to the adoption of the Catholic religion. They had changed too

often to care very much about it, if they were allowed to go about their

business without molestation and had a firm, peaceful government. Parma

had from the first insisted that his force was purely for land warfare,

and his boats were merely flat-bottom barges for the transport of his

men. He had been kept terribly short of money, and had borrowed the last

ducat he could get at most usurious interest. His army, moreover, was

small for the work it had to do, and he continued to insist that he must

have the 6000 Spanish soldiers from the Armada which had been promised

him. The English fleets consisted of 197 sail in all, with, at most,

18,000 men on board. Most of these ships--as also was the case with the

Spaniards--were small cargo boats, lightly armed, and quite unfit for

severe fighting. The largest Spanish ship, the _Regazona_, was 1249 tons

burden, and the largest English ship, the _Triumph_, 1100 tons, but,

generally speaking, the Spanish fighting ships were much larger, as they

certainly were of much higher build than the English, the tactics of the

latter always being to fire low into the hulls of their opponents and

avoid grappling and boarding, which they could do, as their lines were

finer and the vessels much more handy.

 

The Armada sailed up Channel in a curved line seven miles in extent,

with a light west wind, and at dawn on Sunday the English fleet was

sighted off Plymouth to the number of about fifty sail. The latter soon

gained the wind, and began firing into the Spanish rear-squadron. Then

began the memorable series of skirmishes which decided the fate of

Europe for all time to come. The Spanish ships were out-manœuvred

from the first. They found that the English vessels could sail round

them easily, their superior speed and sailing qualities enabling them to

harass their enemies without coming to close quarters. It was purely

artillery fighting, and in this the English were immensely superior. The

Spaniards shouted defiance and taunts that the English were afraid of

them and dared not approach. Drake and Howard knew where their strength

lay; kept the wind and followed the Armada, always harassing the rear

and flanks. Recalde’s flagship of the rear-squadron was for a time

exposed to the united fire of seven English galleons and became almost a

wreck. This first fight on Sunday demoralised the Spaniards. They felt

they were fighting a defensive battle and were running away from the

enemy. The contempt for their commander, and the knowledge of their

helplessness, crept over them like a paralysis. When late in the

afternoon the duke gave orders for the squadrons to be re-formed and

proceed on their way, Recalde’s damaged ship was found to be unable to

keep up with them. Don Pedro de Valdes went to her assistance, and in

doing so fouled one of his own ships, breaking his bowsprit and

foremast. His ship too became unmanageable. She had 500 men on board and

a large amount of treasure. An attempt was made to take her in tow, but

unsuccessfully. Night was coming on, and the duke himself wanted to get

away from the English, who hung upon his rear only a couple of miles

away. He would fight no more that night if he could help it, and he

abandoned two of the finest ships of his fleet without striking a blow.

Then Oquendo’s great ship, _Our Lady of the Rose_, was accidentally

blown up, and soon became a blazing wreck. The duke ordered the men and

treasure to be taken out of her and the ship sunk. But the heart of the

crews had gone, and such was the panic, that the unwounded survivors

scrambled out of the ship as best they might, leaving the vessel and

their scorched and wounded comrades to their fate. And so from day to

day the spirits of the men fell as they realised their powerlessness,

and the Armada crept up the Channel with the English fleet always

hanging on their rear and to windward of them. Every day the duke sent

beseeching letters to Parma to come out and help him. Parma was

indignant. Help him! How could he help him with flat-bottom barges that

would not stand a freshet, much less a gale? Besides, said he, the

arrangement was that you were to help me, not I help you. Justin of

Nassau, with the Dutch fleet, moreover, was watching as a cat watches a

mouse, and Parma could not stir. The officers sent by the duke declared

that Parma was not ready to come out, even if the Armada had fulfilled

its task. He gave them the lie, and with one of them nearly came to

blows. What if he had no water, or guns, or food on his boats? They were

only barges to carry men across, and were not meant either for fighting

or for a voyage of more than a few hours. Besides, how could he come out

with the wind dead in his teeth and Nassau and Seymour watching him? And

so on Sunday, August 7 (N.S.), just one week after the Lizard was

sighted, the great Spanish fleet was huddled, all demoralised and

confused, in Calais roads, at anchor, whilst the duke in vain sent

hourly petitions to Parma to come out and reinforce him. The crews were

ripe for panic now, and when at midnight eight fireships came flaring

down upon them with the wind from the English fleet, the duke seems to

have lost his head. He did not tow the fireships out of reach, in

accordance with his own previous instructions, but gave orders for his

cables to be cut. All the great ships had two anchors each out, and

these were left at the bottom of the sea, whilst the invincible Armada

crowded and hurtled away. The duke’s intention had been to come back in

the morning, pick up his anchors, and resume his position until Parma

could come out. But if Parma was shut up before, when only Lord Henry

Seymour and Justin of Nassau were watching him, much less could he stir

now that the lord admiral and Drake had joined Seymour.

 

The duke brought up in a dangerous position near Gravelines, and when

the morning of Monday dawned he found his fleet scattered and

demoralised, with a stiff west wind blowing and most of his ships

drifted far to leeward. He had only forty ships with him now--one of his

great galleasses, the _San Lorenzo_, had been wrecked at the mouth of

Calais harbour in the confusion of the night--to fight the united

English fleets. The engagement was terrible, lasting from nine o’clock

in the morning till six o’clock at night, the English tactics continuing

to be the same, keeping up a tremendous artillery fire on particular

ships until they were utterly crippled. The Spaniards fought

desperately, but they could rarely come to close quarters, and their

gunnery was greatly inferior to the English. The result, consequently,

was never in doubt. The duke’s ship was in the hottest of the fight, and

her decks were like shambles, for she had been hit by 107 shot. At the

end of the dreadful day she and her consorts were utterly beaten and

riddled; two of the finest galleons, completely unseaworthy, drifted on

to the Flemish coast and were captured, and at dawn on Tuesday what was

left of the Armada was dragging heavily in a strong westerly gale, with

sandbanks on the lee. All spirit and discipline were lost now. The one

idea was to get away from these “devilish people,” who would only fight

with big guns and would not come to close quarters. The duke himself was

for surrender, but Oquendo swore he would throw overboard the first man

who attempted such a thing. He brought his ship alongside the duke’s and

yelled sailor curses upon the landlubber that wanted to run away. “Go

back to your tunny ponds, you chicken-hearted craven,” he cried again

and again; and so the poor duke, in complete collapse, shut himself in

his cabin and was seen no more till he arrived in Spain. At noon a

providential--the Spaniards called it miraculous--wind came from the

south-west, and they were able to weather the dreaded shoals. Oquendo

and the old sailors were now for turning about and fighting again. But

the duke had had enough fighting for the rest of his life, and would

have no more. Besides, there was no ammunition on most of the ships. So

the fatal order was given to run up the North Sea with the wind to the

north of the Orkneys, make a long leg to the west, far out into the

Atlantic, and thence set a course for home. Off the Scottish border the

English fleet left them to their fate. Assailed by tempests almost

unexampled, rotting with pestilence, the water quite putrid now and the

food worse, they struggled to the north and west. Many fell off to

leeward and were seen no more; many sank riddled like sieves in the wild

Atlantic gales; seventeen could not beat far enough to the west and were

dashed to pieces on the frowning coasts of Ulster and Connaught, where

the men who escaped drowning were slaughtered--several thousands of

them--by the English garrisons and the wild Irish kerns. Only

sixty-five ships ever got back to Spain, and of the 24,000 men who

sailed, full of hope that they were going on a sacred crusade to certain

victory, only 10,000 poor, starved, stricken creatures crept back to

Santander.

 

A wail of grief went up through Spain. The little-hearted duke abandoned

his ships and men as soon as he sighted Spanish land, and went to his

home in the south in shameful, selfish luxury, with the curses and

insults of a whole populace ringing in his ears. Some said it was