By England's Aid; or, the Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604)

by G. A. Henty

  CHAPTER IX

  THE ROUT OF THE ARMADA

  The fight between the fleets had begun on Sunday morning, and at theend of the third day the strength of the Armada remained unbroken.The moral effect had no doubt been great, but the loss of two orthree ships was a trifle to so large a force, and the spirit ofthe Spaniards had been raised by the gallant and successful defencethe San Marcos had made on the Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday wasagain calm. The magazines of the English ships were empty. Thoughexpress after express had been sent off praying that ammunitionmight be sent, none had arrived, and the two fleets lay six milesapart without action, save that the galleasses came out and skirmishedfor a while with the English ships.

  That evening, however, a supply of ammunition sufficient for anotherday's fighting arrived, and soon after daybreak the English fleetmoved down towards the Armada, and for the first time engaged themat close quarters. The Ark Raleigh, the Bear, the Elizabeth Jones,the Lion, and the Victory bore on straight into the centre of theSpanish galleons, exchanging broadsides with each as they passed.Oquendo with his vessel was right in the course of the Englishflagship, and a collision took place, in which the Ark Raleigh'srudder was unshipped, and she became unmanageable.

  The enemy's vessels closed round her, but she lowered her boats,and these, in spite of the fire of the enemy, brought her head roundbefore the wind, and she made her way through her antagonists andgot clear. For several hours the battle continued. The Spanish firewas so slow, and their ships so unwieldy, that it was rarely theysucceeded in firing a shot into their active foes, while the Englishshot tore their way through the massive timbers of the Spanishvessels, scattering the splinters thickly among the soldiers, whohad been sent below to be out of harm's way; but beyond this, andinflicting much damage upon masts and spars, the day's fightinghad no actual results. No captures were made by the English.

  The Spaniards suffered, but made no sign; nevertheless theirconfidence in their powers was shaken. Their ammunition was alsorunning short, and they had no hope of refilling their magazinesuntil they effected a junction with Parma. Their admiral that nightwrote to him asking that two shiploads of shot and powder mightbe sent to him immediately. "The enemy pursue me," he said; "theyfire upon me most days from morning till nightfall, but they willnot close and grapple. I have given them every opportunity. Ihave purposely left ships exposed to tempt them to board, but theydecline to do it; and there is no remedy, for they are swift and weare slow. They have men and ammunition in abundance." The Spanishadmiral was unaware that the English magazines were even more emptythan his own.

  On Friday morning Howard sailed for Dover to take in the suppliesthat were so sorely needed. The Earl of Sussex, who was in commandof the castle, gave him all that he had, and the stores taken fromthe prizes came up in light vessels and were divided among thefleet, and in the evening the English fleet again sailed out andtook up its place in the rear of the Armada. On Saturday morningthe weather changed. After six days of calm and sunshine it beganto blow hard from the west, with driving showers. The Spaniards,having no pilots who knew the coasts, anchored off Calais. TheEnglish fleet, closely watching their movements, brought up twomiles astern.

  The Spanish admiral sent off another urgent letter to Parmaat Dunkirk, begging him to send immediately thirty or forty fastgunboats to keep the English at bay. Parma had received the admiral'sletters, and was perfectly ready to embark his troops, but couldnot do this as the admiral expected he would, until the fleet cameup to protect him. The lighters and barges he had constructed forthe passage were only fit to keep the sea in calm weather, andwould have been wholly at the mercy of even a single English shipof war. He could not, therefore, embark his troops until the dukearrived. As to the gunboats asked for, he had none with him.

  But while the Spanish admiral had grave cause for uneasiness inthe situation in which he found himself, Lord Howard had no greaterreason for satisfaction. In spite of his efforts the enemy'sfleet had arrived at their destination with their strength stillunimpaired, and were in communication with the Duke of Parma'sarmy. Lord Seymour had come up with a squadron from the mouth ofthe Thames, but his ships had but one day's provisions on board,while Drake and Howard's divisions had all but exhausted theirsupplies. The previous day's fighting had used up the ammunitionobtained at Dover. Starvation would drive every English ship fromthe sea in another week at the latest. The Channel would then beopen for the passage of Parma's army.

  At five o'clock on Sunday evening a council of war was held in LordHoward's cabin, and it was determined, that as it was impossibleto attack the Spanish Fleet where they lay at the edge of shallowwater, an attempt must be made to drive them out into the Channelwith fireships. Eight of the private vessels were accordingly taken,and such combustibles as could be found--pitch, tar, old sails,empty casks, and other materials--were piled into them. Atmidnight the tide set directly from the English fleet towards theSpaniards, and the fireships, manned by their respective crews,hoisted sail and drove down towards them.

  When near the Armada the crews set fire to the combustibles, andtaking to their boats rowed back to the fleet. At the sight of theflames bursting up from the eight ships bearing down upon them,the Spaniards were seized with a panic. The admiral fired a gun asa signal, and all cut their cables and hoisted sail, and succeededin getting out to sea before the fireships arrived. They lay to sixmiles from shore, intending to return in the morning and recovertheir anchors; but Drake with his division of the fleet, and Seymourwith the squadron from the Thames, weighed their anchors and stoodoff after them, while Howard with his division remained off Calais,where, in the morning, the largest of the four galleasses was seenaground on Calais Bar. Lord Howard wasted many precious hours incapturing her before he set off to join Drake and Seymour, who werethundering against the Spanish fleet. The wind had got up duringthe night, and the Spaniards had drifted farther than they expected,and when morning dawned were scattered over the sea off Gravelines.Signals were made for them to collect, but before they could do soDrake and Seymour came up and opened fire within pistol shot. TheEnglish admiral saw at once that, with the wind rising from thesouth, if he could drive the unwieldy galleons north they wouldbe cut off from Dunkirk, and would not be able to beat back againuntil there was a change of wind.

  All through the morning the English ships poured a continuousshower of shot into the Spanish vessels, which, huddled togetherin a confused mass, were unable to make any return whatever. Theduke and Oquendo, with some of the best sailors among the Fleet,tried to beat out from the crowd and get room to manoeuvre, butDrake's ships were too weatherly and too well handled to permitof this, and they were driven back again into the confused mass,which was being slowly forced towards the shoals and banks of thecoasts.

  Howard came up at noon with his division, and until sunset the firewas maintained, by which time almost the last cartridge was spent,and the crews worn our by their incessant labour. They took noprizes, for they never attempted to board. They saw three greatgalleons go down, and three more drift away towards the sands ofOstend, where they were captured either by the English garrisonedthere or by three vessels sent by Lord Willoughby from Flushing,under the command of Francis Vere. Had the English ammunition lastedbut a few more hours the whole of the Armada would have been eitherdriven ashore or sunk; but when the last cartridge had been burnedthe assailants drew off to take on board the stores which had,while the fighting was going on, been brought up by some provisionships from the Thames.

  But the Spaniards were in no condition to benefit by the cessationof the attack. In spite of the terrible disadvantages under whichthey laboured, they had fought with splendid courage. The sides ofthe galleons had been riddled with shot, and the splinters caused bythe rending of the massive timbers had done even greater executionthan the iron hail. Being always to leeward, and heeling overwith the wind, the ships had been struck again and again below thewaterline, and many were only kept from sinking by nailing sheetsof lead over the shot holes.
>
  Their guns were, for the most part, dismounted or knocked to pieces.Several had lost masts, the carnage among the crews was frightful,and yet not a single ship hauled down her colours. The San Mateo,which was one of those that grounded between Ostend and Sluys,fought to the last, and kept Francis Vere's three ships at bay fortwo hours, until she was at last carried by boarding.

  Left to themselves at the end of the day, the Spaniards gatheredin what order they could, and made sail for the north. On countingthe losses they found that four thousand men had been killed ordrowned, and the number of wounded must have been far greater. Thecrews were utterly worn out and exhausted. They had the day beforebeen kept at work cleaning and refitting, and the fireships haddisturbed them early in the night. During the engagement there hadbeen no time to serve out food, and the labours of the long strugglehad completely exhausted them. Worst of all, they were utterlydisheartened by the day's fighting. They had been pounded by theiractive foes, who fired five shots to their one, and whose vesselssailed round and round them, while they themselves had inflictedno damage that they could perceive upon their assailants.

  The English admirals had no idea of the extent of the victory theyhad won. Howard, who had only come up in the middle of the fight,believed that they "were still wonderful great and strong," whileeven Drake, who saw more clearly how much they had suffered,only ventured to hope that some days at least would elapse beforethey could join hands with Parma. In spite of the small store ofammunition that had arrived the night before, the English magazineswere almost empty; but they determined to show a good front, and"give chase as though they wanted nothing."

  When the morning dawned the English fleet were still to windwardof the Armada, while to leeward were lines of white foam, wherethe sea was breaking on the shoals of Holland. It seemed that theArmada was lost. At this critical moment the wind suddenly shiftedto the east. This threw the English fleet to leeward, and enabledthe Spaniards to head out from the coast and make for the NorthSea. The Spanish admiral held a council. The sea had gone down,and they had now a fair wind for Calais; and the question was putto the sailing masters and captains whether they should return intothe Channel or sail north round Scotland and Ireland, and so returnto Spain. The former was the courageous course, but the spirit of theSpaniards was broken, and the vote was in favour of what appeareda way of escape. Therefore, the shattered Fleet bore on its waynorth. On board the English fleet a similar council was being held,and it was determined that Lord Seymour's squadron should return toguard the Channel, lest Parma should take advantage of the absenceof the fleet to cross from Dunkirk to England, and that Howard andDrake with their ninety ships should pursue the Spaniards; for itwas not for a moment supposed that the latter had entirely abandonedtheir enterprise, and intended to return to Spain without makinganother effort to rejoin Parma.

  During the week's fighting Geoffrey and Lionel Vickars had takensuch part as they could in the contest; but as there had beenno hand to hand fighting, the position of the volunteers on boardthe fleet had been little more than that of spectators. The crewsworked the guns and manoeuvred the sails, and the most the ladscould do was to relieve the ship boys in carrying up powder andshot, and to take round drink to men serving the guns. When nototherwise engaged they had watched with intense excitement themanoeuvres of their own ship and of those near them, as they sweptdown towards the great hulls, delivered their broadsides, and thenshot off again before the Spaniards had had time to discharge morethan a gun or two. The sails had been pierced in several places,but not a single shot had struck the hull of the vessel. In thelast day's fighting, however, the Active became entangled amongseveral of the Spanish galleons, and being almost becalmed by theirlofty hulls, one of them ran full at her, and rolling heavily inthe sea, seemed as if she would overwhelm her puny antagonist.

  Geoffrey was standing at the end of the poop when the mizzen riggingbecame entangled in the stern gallery of the Spaniard, and a momentlater the mast snapped off, and as it fell carried him overboard.For a moment he was half stunned, but caught hold of a piece oftimber shot away from one of the enemy's ships, and clung to itmechanically. When he recovered and looked round, the Active haddrawn out from between the Spaniards, and the great galleon whichhad so nearly sunk her was close beside him.

  The sea was in a turmoil; the waves as they set in from the westbeing broken up by the rolling of the great ships, and torn by thehail of shot. The noise was prodigious, from the incessant cannonadekept up by the English ships and the return of the artillery onboard the Armada, the rending of timber, the heavy crashes as thegreat galleons rolled against one another, the shouting on boardthe Spanish ships, the creaking of the masts and yards, and theflapping of the sails.

  On trying to strike out, Geoffrey found that as he had been knockedoverboard he had struck his right knee severely against the railof the vessel, and was at present unable to use that leg. Fearfulof being run down by one of the great ships, and still more of beingcaught between two of them as they rolled, he looked round to tryto get sight of an English ship in the throng. Then, seeing thathe was entirely surrounded by Spaniards, he left the spar and swamas well as he could to the bow of a great ship close beside him,and grasping a rope trailing from the bowsprit, managed by its aidto climb up until he reached the bobstay, across which he seatedhimself with his back to the stem. The position was a precariousone, and after a time he gained the wooden carved work above, andobtained a seat there just below the bowsprit, and hidden from thesight of those on deck a few feet above him. As he knew the vesselswere drifting to leeward towards the shoals, he hoped to remainhidden until the vessel struck, and then to gain the shore.

  Presently the shifting of the positions of the ships brought thevessel on which he was into the outside line. The shots now flewthickly about, and he could from time to time feel a jar as thevessel was struck.

  So an hour went on. At the end of that time he heard a great shoutingon deck, and the sound of men running to and fro. Happening to lookdown he saw that the sea was but a few feet below him, and knewthat the great galleon was sinking. Another quarter of an hour shewas so much lower that he was sure she could not swim many minuteslonger; and to avoid being drawn down with her he dropped into thewater and swam off. He was but a short distance away when he hearda loud cry, and glancing over his shoulder saw the ship disappearing.He swam desperately, but was caught in the suck and carried under;but there was no great depth of water, and he soon came to thesurface again. The sea was dotted with struggling men and piecesof wreckage. He swam to one of the latter, and held on until hesaw some boats, which the next Spanish ship had lowered when shesaw her consort disappearing, rowing towards them, and was soonafterwards hauled into one of them. He had closed his eyes as itcame up, and assumed the appearance of insensibility, and he layin the bottom of the boat immovable, until after a time he heardvoices above, and then felt himself being carried up the ladderand laid down on the deck.

  He remained quiet for some rime, thinking over what he had best do.He was certain that were it known he was English he would at oncebe stabbed and thrown overboard, for there was no hope of quarter;but he was for some time unable to devise any plan by which, evenfor a short rime, to conceal his nationality. He only knew a fewwords of Spanish, and would be detected the moment he opened hislips. He thought of leaping up suddenly and jumping overboard;but his chance of reaching the English ships to windward would beslight indeed. At last an idea struck him, and sitting up he openedhis eyes and looked round. Several other Spaniards who had beenpicked up lay exhausted on the deck near him. A party of soldiersand sailors close by were working a cannon. The bulwarks wereshot away in many places, dead and dying men lay scattered about,the decks were everywhere stained with blood, and no one paid anyattention to him until presently the fire began to slacken. Shortlyafterwards a Spanish officer came up and spoke to him.

  Geoffrey rose to his feet, rubbed his eyes, yawned, and burst intoan idiotic laugh. The officer spoke again but he paid no a
ttention,and the Spaniard turned away, believing that the lad had lost hissenses from fear and the horrors of the day.

  As night came on he was several times addressed, but always withthe same result. When after dark food and wine were served out,he seized the portion offered to him, and hurrying away crouchedunder the shelter of a gun, and devoured it as if fearing it wouldbe taken from him again.

  When he saw that the sailors were beginning to repair some of themost necessary ropes and stays that had been shot away, he pushedhis way through them and took his share of the work, laughingidiotically from time to time. He had, when he saw that the galleonwas sinking, taken off his doublet, the better to be able to swim,and in his shirt and trunks there was nothing to distinguish himfrom a Spaniard, and none suspected that he was other than he seemedto be--a ship's boy, who had lost his senses from fear. When thework was done, he threw himself on the deck with the weary sailors.His hopes were that the battle would be renewed in the morning, andthat either the ship might be captured, or that an English vesselmight pass so close alongside that he might leap over and swim toher.

  Great was his disappointment next day when the sudden change ofwind gave the Spanish fleet the weather gage, and enabled them tosteer away for the north. He joined in the work of the crew, payingno attention whatever to what was passing around him, or heedingin the slightest the remarks made to him. Once or twice when anofficer spoke to him sternly he gave a little cry, ran to the side,and crouched down as if in abject fear. In a very short time noattention was paid to him, and he was suffered to go about as hechose, being regarded as a harmless imbecile. He was in hopes thatthe next day the Spaniards would change their course and endeavourto beat back to the Channel, and was at once disappointed andsurprised as they sped on before the southwesterly wind, whichwas hourly increasing in force. Some miles behind he could see theEnglish squadron in pursuit; but these made no attempt to closeup, being well contented to see the Armada sailing away, and beingtoo straitened in ammunition to wish to bring on an engagement solong as the Spaniards were following their present course.

  The wind blew with ever increasing force; the lightly ballastedships made bad weather, rolling deep in the seas, straining heavily,and leaking badly through the opening seams and the hastily stoppedshot holes. Water was extremely scarce, and at a signal from theadmiral all the horses and mules were thrown overboard in orderto husband the supply. Several of the masts, badly injured by theEnglish shot, went by the board, and the vessels dropped behindcrippled, to be picked up by the pursuing fleet.

  Lord Howard followed as far as the mouth of the Forth; and seeingthat the Spaniards made no effort to enter the estuary, and hisprovisions being now well nigh exhausted, he hove the fleet aboutand made back for the Channel, leaving two small vessels only tofollow the Armada and watch its course, believing that it wouldmake for Denmark, refit there, and then return to rejoin Parma.

  It was a grievous disappointment to the English to be thus forcedby want of provisions to relinquish the pursuit. Had they beenproperly supplied with provisions and ammunition they could havemade an end of the Armada; whereas, they believed that by allowingthem now to escape the whole work would have to be done over again.They had sore trouble to get back again off the Norfolk coast. Thewind became so furious that the fleet was scattered. A few of thelargest ships reached Margate; others were driven into Harwich,others with difficulty kept the sea until the storm broke.

  It might have been thought that after such service as the fleethad rendered even Elizabeth might have been generous; but now thatthe danger was over, she became more niggardly than ever. No freshprovisions were supplied for the sick men, and though in the fightoff the Dutch coast only some fifty or sixty had been killed, inthe course of a very short time the crews were so weakened by deathsand disease that scarce a ship could have put to sea, however urgentthe necessity. Drake and Howard spent every penny they could raisein buying fresh meat and vegetables, and in procuring some sort ofshelter on shore for the sick. Had the men received the wages dueto them they could have made a shift to have purchased what theyso urgently required; but though the Treasury was full of money,not a penny was forthcoming until every item of the accounts hadbeen investigated and squabbled over. Howard was compelled to payfrom his private purse for everything that had been purchased atPlymouth, Sir John Hawkins was absolutely ruined by the demandsmade on him to pay for necessaries supplied to the fleet, and hadthe admirals and sailors of the fleet that saved England behavedlike ignominious cowards, their treatment could not have been worsethan that which they received at the hands of their sovereign.

  But while the English seamen were dying like sheep from diseaseand neglect, their conquered foes were faring no better. They hadbreathed freely for the first time when they saw the English fleetbear up; an examination was made of the provisions that were left,and the crews were placed on rations of eight ounces of bread,half a pint of wine, and a pint of water a day. The fleet was stilla great one, for of the hundred and fifty ships which had sailedfrom Corunna, a hundred and twenty still held together. The weathernow turned bitterly cold, with fog and mist, squalls and drivingshowers; and the vessels, when they reached the north coast ofScotland, lost sight of each other, and each struggled for herselfin the tempestuous sea.

  A week later the weather cleared, and on the 9th of August Geoffreylooking round at daybreak saw fifteen other ships in sight. Amongthese were the galleons of Calderon and Ricaldo, the Rita, SanMarcos, and eleven other vessels. Signals were flying from all ofthem, but the sea was so high that it was scarce possible to lowera boat. That night it again blew hard and the fog closed in, andin the morning Geoffrey found that the ship he was on, and allthe others, with the exception of that of Calderon, were steeringnorth; the intention of Ricaldo and De Leyva being to make for theOrkneys and refit there. Calderon had stood south, and had comeupon Sidonia with fifty ships; and these, bearing well away to thewest of Ireland, finally succeeded for the most part in reachingSpain, their crews reduced by sickness and want to a mere shadowof their original strength.

  The cold became bitter as De Leyva's ships made their way towardsthe Orkneys. The storm was furious, and the sailors, unaccustomedto the cold and weakened by disease and famine, could no longerwork their ships, and De Leyva was obliged at last to abandonhis intention and make south. One galleon was driven on the FaroeIslands, a second on the Orkneys, and a third on the Isle of Mull,where it was attacked by the natives and burned with almost everyone on board. The rest managed to make the west coast of Ireland,and the hope that they would find shelter in Galway Bay, or themouth of the Shannon, began to spring up in the breasts of theexhausted crews.

  The Irish were their co-religionists and allies, and had only beenwaiting for news of the success of the Armada to rise in arms againstthe English, who had but few troops there. Rumours of disaster hadarrived, and a small frigate had been driven into Tralee Bay. Thefears of the garrison at Tralee Castle overcame their feelings ofhumanity, and all on board were put to death. Two galleons put intoDingle, and landing begged for water; but the natives, decidingthat the Spanish cause was a lost one, refused to give them a drop,seized the men who had landed in the boats, and the galleons hadto put to sea again.

  Another ship of a thousand tons, Our Lady of the Rosary, was driveninto the furious straits between the Blasket Islands and the coastof Kerry. Of her crew of seven hundred, five hundred had died.Before she got halfway through she struck among the breakers, andall the survivors perished save the son of the pilot, who was washedashore lashed to a plank. Six others who had reached the mouth ofthe Shannon sent their boats ashore for water; but although therewere no English there the Irish feared to supply them, even thoughthe Spaniards offered any sum of money for a few casks. One of theships was abandoned and the others put to sea, only to be dashedashore in the same gale that wrecked Our Lady of the Rosary, andof all their crews only one hundred and fifty men were cast ashorealive. Along the coast of Connemara, Mayo, and Sligo many otherships we
re wrecked. In almost every case the crews who reached theshore were at once murdered by the native savages for the sake oftheir clothes and jewellery.

  Geoffrey had suffered as much as the rest of the crew on boardthe galleon in which he sailed. All were so absorbed by their ownsuffering and misery that none paid any attention to the idiot boyin their midst. He worked at such work as there was to do: assistedto haul on the ropes, to throw the dead overboard, and to do whatcould be done for the sick and wounded. Like all on board he wasreduced almost to a skeleton, and was scarce able to stand.

  As the surviving ships passed Galway Bay, one of them, which wasleaking so badly that she could only have been kept afloat a fewhours in any case, entered it, and brought up opposite the town. DonLewis of Cordova, who commanded, sent a party on shore, believingthat in Galway, between which town and Spain there had always beenclose connections, they would be well received. They were, however,at once taken prisoners. An attempt was made to get up the anchorsagain, but the crew were too feeble to be able to do so, and thenatives coming out in their boats, all were taken prisoners and senton shore. Sir Richard Bingham, the governor of Connaught, arrivedin a few hours, and at once despatched search parties through Clareand Connemara to bring all Spaniards cast ashore alive to the town,and sent his son to Mayo to fetch down all who landed there. Butyoung Bingham's mission proved useless; every Spaniard who hadlanded had been murdered by the natives, well nigh three thousandhaving been slain by the axes and knives of the savages who professedto be their co-religionists.

  Sir Richard Bingham was regarded as a humane man, but he fearedthe consequences should the eleven hundred prisoners collected atGalway be restored to health and strength. He had but a handful oftroops under him, and had had the greatest difficulty in keepingdown the Irish alone. With eleven hundred Spanish soldiers to aidthem the task would be impossible, and accordingly he gave ordersthat all, with the exception of Don Lewis himself, and three orfour other nobles, should be executed. The order was carried out;Don Lewis, with those spared, was sent under an escort to Dublin,but the others being too feeble to walk were killed or died on theway, and Don Lewis himself was the sole survivor out of the crewsof a dozen ships.

  De Leyva, the most popular officer in the Armada, had with him inhis ship two hundred and fifty young nobles of the oldest familiesin Spain. He was twice wrecked. The first time all reached theshore in safety, and were protected by O'Niel, who was virtuallythe sovereign of the north of Ulster. He treated them kindly fora time. They then took to sea again, but were finally wrecked offDunluce, and all on board save five perished miserably. Over eightthousand Spaniards died on the Irish coast. Eleven hundred were putto death by Bingham, three thousand murdered by the Irish, the restdrowned; and of the whole Armada but fifty-four vessels, carryingbetween nine and ten thousand worn out men, reached Spain, and ofthe survivors a large proportion afterwards died from the effectsof the sufferings they had endured.