The Spanish Armada

by Hutchinson, Robert

  Undeterred by all these problems, a confident captain-general told Philip two days later: ‘With God’s help, [I] hope to have everything ready for sailing by tomorrow or the day after, weather permitting.’ His Castilian, Guipúzcoan and Andalusian squadrons had already been towed out of harbour, together with the auxiliary squadron of pataches and zabras, and the remainder would follow the next day. The Armada’s departure depended merely on a fair wind blowing up.

  Medina Sidonia ordered that tents and altars be erected on a small island in the harbour – where the Castillo San Antón was under construction – for friars to hear the confessions of his sailors and soldiers, who were landed ship by ship, company by company.24 As a talisman, each man was given a pewter medallion with an image of Christ on the obverse and that of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the reverse. The act of shrivening the Armada assumed industrial proportions: already 8,000 had been granted absolution, and the captain-general proudly informed the king that ‘this is such an inestimable treasure that I esteem it more highly than the most precious jewel I carry on the fleet’. Cynics, however, would have noted that celebrating the sacrament of absolution on an island at least served to prevent further desertions.

  Frustratingly, bad weather continued to be a factor: a strong west-north-west wind and the big Atlantic seas running into Corunna bay delayed sailing. On 19 July the Armada commanders met in the duke’s cabin in San Martin to discuss tactics. It was agreed that they should sail up the English Channel in the tried-and-tested crescent-shaped formation known as the lunula, which had flanking horns formed by heavy-gunned warships. Again, Don Pedro de Valdés was the one dissenting voice, urging the Armada to be divided equally into a vanguard and a rearguard with the slower transport and supply ships at its heart between the two lines of protecting vessels.25

  Captain Antonio de Taso Aquereis wrote to his family in Andalusia: ‘All things are embarked. [We are] only tarrying for wind; and [it] is commanded, upon pain of death, [that] no man [should] disembark himself.’26

  On the morning of 21 July, the Armada finally departed Corunna, favoured by a light south-westerly breeze. It must have presented a brave, formidable display of Spanish naval might to the watching (and praying) crowds perched on the headland high above the harbour, with the ships’ colours flying and the trumpets sounding raucous, piercing fanfares across the bay.

  For a ‘great and most fortunate navy’ the Armada had, up to now, suffered more than its fair share of bad luck. Unfortunately, this day was to be no different.

  At two o’clock, within nine nautical miles (16.65 km) of land, the wind died completely. The ships remained stationary in the flat calm, sails hanging limply from their yardarms, until three the next morning when a brisk south-easterly wind suddenly blew up. In hoisting her sail, the galley Zúñiga broke the socket holding her rudder and the fleet waited impatiently for this damage to be repaired. Almost twelve hours later, the Armada rounded Cape Ortegal, butting into the Bay of Biscay, and Medina Sidonia set course for England and dreams of glory.

  Back in England, there was palpable tension in the air as final preparations to the defences of Elizabeth’s realm were hurriedly scrambled. A number of armed merchantmen had been hired to augment her navy, along with ships supplied by coastal towns.27 Howard had taken his twenty-strong fleet to join Drake, his vice-admiral, at Plymouth, leaving a squadron of fourteen queen’s ships plus sixteen vessels drawn from various ports, under Sir Henry Seymour in Rainbow, to guard the Straits of Dover and to interdict any attempted crossing by Parma’s army.28

  Like their Spanish adversaries, the English navy was afflicted by a grievous shortage of food. On 28 May, the lord admiral wrote desperately to Burghley: ‘My lord, we have here now but eighteen days’ victual and there is none to be gotten in all this country.’ The wind being favourable, it was likely the Armada was on its way and if the weather held, in ‘six days they will knock at our door’. He added: ‘God send us a wind to put us out, for go we will, though we starve.’ At Plymouth, there were ‘the gallantest company of captains, soldiers and mariners that I think ever was seen in England. It [is a] pity they should lack meat when they are so desirous to spend their lives in her majesty’s service.’29

  In the Low Countries, the English commander Lord Willoughby pointedly reminded the rebel States General of their agreement to ‘equip certain ships at their own expense’ to join forces with the English navy ‘in case of any enterprise of the King of Spain against [Elizabeth]’. Moreover the queen had heard of planned enemy attacks on Bergen-op-Zoom and Ostend, a seaport ‘very destitute of supplies and fortifications’ and therefore urged the Dutch to repair the fortifications and reinforce their garrisons.30

  Seemingly by a process of osmosis, Elizabeth’s government had decreed that the Thames estuary, and more specifically the eastern county of Essex, was the most likely target for Parma’s landing. This was where her army would stand and fight. But just in case this guesswork proved wrong, a decision was taken to build a bridge of boats across the river between Tilbury in Essex and Gravesend in Kent, to enable the army to quickly reinforce the south-east corner of her realm. Like many of Elizabeth’s decisions, the go-ahead for the bridge came very late in the day. Surveying work only began on 27 July.

  The fort at Tilbury (like the boom of ships’ masts and chains stretched across the Thames) scarcely presented a credible defence against attack by a determined enemy – particularly if they were armed with the siege artillery carried by the Armada. Built in 1539 by Henry VIII,31 the old two-storeyed, D-shaped blockhouse was now to be strengthened. Two encircling ditches (with drawbridges over) were excavated and a new counterscarp bank thrown up, topped by a timber palisade. The fort was designed to provide withering crossfire against any ships sailing up the river to attack London, in conjunction with a similar structure eight hundred yards (731.52 metres) across the Thames at New Tavern, Gravesend.32 However, these defences were hastily constructed and had the appearance of fieldworks rather than permanent fortifications.

  New batteries were also built or proposed at Northfleet, Erith and Greenhythe in Kent, but the Earl of Leicester, appointed the queen’s general of land forces in July, found that there were no platforms there fit to mount guns. In addition, he deemed the blockhouses at Milton and Gravesend ‘indefensible’, having been built ‘to the least purpose that I ever saw’.33 Seymour suggested in the middle of June that twenty hoys from Harwich and Ipswich ‘being nimble of sail and quick in turning to and fro’ should be stationed in the Thames estuary to forestall any landing by Parma.34 In the end, only the 90-ton Brigandine took up position at the Nore,35 a sandbank where the estuary merged into the North Sea, to provide advance warning of a Spanish approach. William Borough, whose naval career was now miraculously rehabilitated after Drake’s accusations at Cadiz, was given command of the 300-ton Bonavolia, the only large oared galley in the queen’s navy, which acted as a guardship downstream from London ‘lest invaders come at half tide’. It was a scant consolation prize for all Borough’s travails.36

  Walsingham, in bed ‘awaiting the recurrence of a fit’, was both angry and frustrated at Elizabeth’s stubborn reluctance to commit her finances to the defence of her nation, and less than optimistic about England’s chance of defeating a Spanish invasion. He told Burghley that he was sorry to see ‘so great a danger hanging over the realm so lightly regarded and so carelessly provided for. Would to God the enemy were no more careful to assail than we to defend.’ His concerns were unconsciously echoed by Howard on 19 June: ‘For the love of God let her majesty care not now for charges.’

  There remained the question of Elizabeth’s personal protection. On 2 June, the queen had ordered some of the nobility to ‘speedily put the realm in a posture of defence to resist the attempts of Spain’ and to hold themselves in readiness to ‘attend upon her person with a . . . convenient number of lances and light horse’ at such time as the Privy Council ordered.37 Her household servants had already been placed on
alert, ready to move to a place of safety. A dozen of the principal recusants had been speedily arrested and sent to the Tower to prevent any chance of assassination.38

  Burghley, having received a copy of Allen’s venomous Admonition to the Nobility and People of England on 12 June from Sir Henry Killigrew in The Hague, sent this ‘vile book’ to Walsingham, adding with a touch of bravura: ‘The Cardinal is deceived if he thinks that any nobleman or gentlemen of possessions will favour the invasion of the realm.’39 Just to make sure, he issued a proclamation on 1 July threatening punishment, under martial law, to anyone possessing or distributing papal bulls, books or pamphlets.40

  Spy fever gripped England. The mayor and jurats of Dover had arrested one Adrian Menneck, ‘lately arrived with Calais’ who they believed was an agent working for Parma. Suspiciously, he had been found with a ‘map or charts of all the coasts of England, Scotland and Ireland’.

  There was no up-to-date hard intelligence about the Armada’s movements or intentions and if the turbulent weather had played cruel tricks on Medina Sidonia’s ships, it had succeeded in frustrating the English navy too.

  Drake reported on his reconnaissance in the Channel approaches in a letter to Burghley dated 6 June and written from ‘her majesty’s good ship Revenge’ now safely back in Plymouth Sound. For seven days they had suffered ‘a great storm’, which the vice-admiral considered unusual weather for early summer. They met a hulk, returning to her home port of San Lúcar, which sixteen days before had encountered:

  a great fleet of ships which came from Lisbon, having the wind northerly and so coming to the westward . . . The skipper and the company . . . saw so many as they could not number [count] them.

  Either we shall hear of them very shortly or else they will go to the Groyne [Corunna] and there assemble.

  Drake concluded: ‘I daily pray to God to bless her majesty and give us grace to fear Him so shall we not need to doubt the enemy, although they be many.’41

  Three days later, Walsingham passed on to Howard Elizabeth’s firm instructions not to sail to Bayonne ‘to watch the proceedings of the Spanish fleet’. The queen feared that the Armada could slip past her ships unnoticed and therefore recommended that her fleet ‘ply up and down between the English and Spanish coast so as you may be able to answer any attempt that the fleet shall make either against this realm, Ireland, or Scotland’.42 Howard, still beset by storms, argued that ‘it was the opinion of all [his] most experienced commanders that they ought to proceed at once’ to the Spanish coast. Moreover, the delay in awaiting the Armada would consume all their provisions. Nonetheless, he would obey orders.43

  First news of the Armada came on Monday 23 June when a barque from Mousehole, laden with a cargo of salt for France, ‘encountered nine sail of great ships between Scilly and Ushant, bearing north-east’ towards the Cornish coast – some of the Armada ships blown north from Corunna.

  Coming near unto them, he, not doubting they were Spaniards, kept the wind of them. They . . . began to give him chase . . . three of them followed him so near that the Englishman doubted hardly to escape.

  At his first sight of them, there were two flags spread which were suddenly taken in again . . . Their sails were all crossed over with a red cross. Each of the greater ships towed astern them either a great boat or pinnace without a mast.44

  The previous day, ‘One Simmons of Exeter’ declared ‘that on Friday last he was chased [by] a fleet of great ships, having some of his men hurt with shot from them’. He escaped, landed in Cornwall, and hurried to Plymouth to inform the lord admiral.45

  At the other end of the Channel, Seymour was alert for any sign of Parma’s sortie out of Flanders. In late June he spent thirty hours off Gravelines, during which he spotted two small ships leaving Dunkirk.

  Two of our pinnaces chased them, with the discharging of some saker shot and yet [they] would not strike [their sails] till at last one of our shot struck down the mainmast of one of these vessels, being a French bottom [vessel] belonging to Calais.

  I demanded what he meant not to strike his sails and to come to the queen’s ships, knowing us so well. He answered that he took us for the King of Navarre’s fleet, making himself ignorant what to do.

  I replied that if the Duke of Parma or the Duke of Guise should do the like, I would sink them or they would distress me – adding further that my sovereign lady was able to defend her country against the Holy League, besides able to master any civil discord and so dismissed them with some little choler [anger].

  The second fugitive ship ran aground and the crew fled, wading through the surf. ‘My boat, which I manned with some [musketeers], came upon their skirts but a little too late. Yet there came very near a hundred men, horse and foot but dare not approach . . .’ But suddenly the wind rose, forcing Seymour to seek shelter from ‘marvellous foul weather’ for thirty hours in a Kent harbour.46

  Howard now received hard intelligence that the Armada was regrouping at Corunna. Forgoing the loading of all his stores, he took advantage of a prosperous north-easterly wind to depart Plymouth with sixty ships on 4 July. He set course for Spain, hoping to give battle off Corunna, but again bad weather intervened, with storms and southerly gales off the Scillies and Ushant. The English fleet was driven back to Plymouth five days later, short of supplies and some of the ships leaking. Howard was quick to defend John Hawkins, one of his captains and Treasurer of the Navy:

  I have heard that there is in London some hard speeches against Mr Hawkins because the Hope came in [to] mend a leak that she had.

  I think there were never so many of the ships so long abroad and in such seas with such weather as these have had with so few leaks.

  The Hope’s leak was so small ‘that I would have dared to have gone with it to Venice’, he added dismissively. Some of the hired merchantmen needed new spars and cordage and some ships reported sickness amongst their crews.47

  In London, events had moved on and there were graver problems than a slight leak in one of her majesty’s ships. A new crisis was confronting Elizabeth’s government: they were almost bankrupt. In January 1588, she had extorted a forced loan from her richer subjects that had brought £75,000 into her hard-pressed exchequer. Three months later, the queen borrowed £30,000 from the City of London, repayable at 10 per cent. Now, that money was long gone.

  On 19 July, Burghley, grievously afflicted with gastric pains, wrote to Walsingham describing his desperate straits in finding cash to keep the fleet at sea:

  I find my mind as much troubled to write as now I do as commonly my stomach is against purging but I cannot conceal from you the causes which will shortly bring forth desperate effects.

  Burghley had paid out £6,000 that week for wages and foodstuffs for the ships, but then had received demands for more than £19,000 for naval pay up to 28 July. Old debts of £13,000 for provisions had been demanded too, but the treasurer had persuaded the creditors to take postponed, staged payments. ‘I marvel that where so many are dead on the seas, the pay is not dead with them or with many of them,’ Burghley wrote ruefully. On top of all this, costs of the army totalled nearly £11,000:

  I shall but fill my letter with more melancholy matter if I should remember what money must be [paid to] 5,000 footmen and 1,000 horsemen for defence of the enemy landing in Essex . . .

  A man would wish if peace cannot be had, that the enemy would not longer delay but prove (as I trust) his evil fortune, for as these expectations do consume us, so I would hope by God’s goodness upon their defect, we might have on half a year’s time to provide for money.

  He had talked with two London bankers, Sir Horatio Palavicino48 and Richard Saltonstall, about a loan amounting to £40,000 or £50,000, repayable at 10 per cent interest, ‘but I find no probability how to get money here in [gold] specie which is our lack but by exchanging to have it out of the parts beyond [the] sea which will not be done in a long time.’ Burghley also had hopes that English merchants at Stade, on the River Elbe, near Hamburg
,49 might lend £20,000 or £30,000.50

  Medina Sidonia had his own worries. Using Captain Don Rodrigo Tello de Guzmán as his courier, he had sent another message to Parma on Monday 25 July, reporting his progress. At dawn the following day there was a dead calm before heavy squalls forced the Portuguese galley Diana to head for a Spanish port after her oar-slaves mutinied and she began to take in water. These long narrow ships, designed to operate in calmer waters, could not cope with the long Atlantic rollers; under constant battering, the seams of the hull planking were beginning to spring apart. The other three galleys disappeared from sight and fresh storms on the 27th scattered the Armada yet again. The captain-general reported:

  The sea was so heavy that all the sailors agreed that they have never seen its equal in July.

  Not only did the waves mount to the skies but some seas broke clean over the ships and the stern gallery of Diego Flores’ flagship [San Cristobal] was carried away.

  We were on watch all night, full of anxiety lest the Armada should suffer great damage but could do nothing more.

  It was the most cruel night ever seen.

  Next day, when the seas were less rough and visibility had improved, Medina Sidonia looked out at his fleet and realised that forty ships were missing – all of Pedro de Valdés Andalusian squadron, all the hulks and some of the pataches. The captain-general had suffered his first casualties.

  The galley Bazana was wrecked at the entrance to Bayonne harbour and her sister ship Diana beached.51 The Biscayan flagship Santa Ana lost her mainmast and sought refuge in the French port of La Hogue on the Cherbourg peninsula; she later moved to Le Havre, where she was to spend the rest of the Armada campaign immobilised.52 The galleass San Lorenzo had a damaged rudder; Medina Sidonia noted with just a touch of fatalism: ‘These craft are really very fragile in heavy seas.’ He had lost three of his ships before a shot had been fired.