As the clearing acrid smoke rolled across the sea, Recalde moved his battered ship into the protective centre of the crescent to undertake emergency repairs. The Armada continued slowly eastwards, its progress interrupted by forays from harrying English ships, firing occasional long-range shots.
Within minutes of the English breaking off the action came the first of two calamitous accidents that were to cost Medina Sidonia two of his major warships. Fearing that Recalde’s stricken vessel would ‘not be able to abide any new fight if it were offered the same day’, Admiral Don Pedro de Valdés in the Nuestra Señora del Rosario was swiftly cutting through the water to assist when he collided with one of the Biscayan ships, breaking the bowsprit and wrecking its steering. Then at around two o’clock, a catastrophic explosion tore through another ship, carrying the Armada’s pay in gold. Calderón takes up the story:
The San Salvador of Oquendo’s [Guipúzcoan] squadron blew up by reason of the powder which had been brought on deck for the fighting.
It is said that Captain [Pedro] Priego had beaten a German artilleryman who went below, saying that one of the pieces [guns] had got wet and would have to be discharged.
He fired the piece and then threw the port fire [linstock] into a barrel of powder.
Both of the after decks were blown up, killing over two hundred men, including Ensign Castañeda who was on watch and the ship was rent in the bows and stern.
Many of the men jumped into the sea and were drowned.
With a bureaucrat’s worry for a colleague and his responsibilities, Calderón added that ‘Paymaster Juan de Huerta, his staff papers and some money in his charge were saved’.21
Sensational rumours swept the Spanish fleet. One suggested that a Dutch master-gunner, rebuked for poor aiming or rate of fire, had laid a powder trail to a barrel of explosives, coolly lit it, and then jumped overboard. Another tale recounted how the gunner had been reproved for smoking on the quarter-deck by the captain and had calmly knocked out his clay pipe into the ubiquitous barrel of gunpowder. A third version said the master-gunner was a German who had been struck by a Spanish officer with a stick as a punishment for neglecting his duty.22
A more florid report, written some time after the event by the Florentine Petruccio Ubaldino, concerned a gunner who had been cuckolded by a Spanish army officer and had taken his own, devastating revenge:
The captain of the soldiers . . . having small regard of an orderly and civil life, did insolently beat a Flemish gunner. What cause he had, I know not, whether upon occasion of words touching his charge [responsibilities] or by means of the gunner’s wife whom he had abused, according to the custom of that nation. Whereupon the perplexed man, seeing himself among such a kind of people as not only made him serve their turns but disgraced him in as vile manner, as if he were a slave, despairing of life, wife and his young daughter and perchance rather moved with the dishonour of them . . . set himself on fire in a barrel of gunpowder, procuring thereby . . . a cruel revenge of his injuries.23
Some support for this exciting story of lust, despair and terrible revenge is provided by an English report that a German woman was discovered among the survivors from the 958-ton San Salvador.24 So much for Medina Sidonia’s ban on women accompanying the Armada.
The explosion blew apart the ship’s stern castle and destroyed the two aft upper decks as well as damaging her rudder. The captain-general halted the Armada and sent pataches to pick up survivors from the burning hull and the surrounding sea, beginning with ‘the principal persons’ – those of high rank. Calderón received thirty-five casualties on his ship, mostly suffering from terrible burns, including the San Salvador’s captain, Don Pedro Priego. Directing operations from the San Martin’s poop deck, Medina Sidonia ordered boats to transfer the San Salvador’s treasure to other ships and help turn her battered stern away from the wind to prevent the fire that was raging amidships from blowing further forward. Forming human chains to pass buckets, the remaining crew, aided by volunteers, eventually managed to extinguish the blaze. They were only just in time: the fire was edging dangerously close to the magazine beneath the forecastle, holding seven tons of gunpowder. Two galleasses took the stricken ship in tow, its badly burned survivors still on board, and the Armada continued its stately progress up the Channel.25
The day had not gone well for Medina Sidonia. Standing on San Martin’s poop deck, high above the waves, he probably reflected that although the Armada had survived the first English attack, it was galling that the most serious damage to his ships had been caused by avoidable accidents rather than by enemy action. He had eaten nothing all day but some bread and Sardinian cheese, brought to him in rare moments of quiet. If his cup of despair and disappointment had been full before, it now flowed over.
The wind turned squally, whipping up increasingly choppy waves. The damaged Rosario began losing steerage and at five o’clock she was involved in a second collision – this time with her sister Andalusian galleon, the 730-ton Santa Catalina. Her foremast snapped off at its base and came crashing down on to the mainmast, reducing the upper deck to a tangled mass of fallen timber and rigging. Pedro de Valdés’ ship was now uncontrollable and he fired a signal gun for assistance.
The San Martin came up alongside and her captain, Captain Marolín de Juan (also the Armada’s sailing master), ordered that the Rosario should be taken in tow. But the sea had risen still further and within minutes of the tow being secured, the hawser parted. Medina Sidonia’s naval adviser Diego Flores de Valdés urged him to abandon the damaged ship as any delay could jeopardise both the Armada’s mission and the fleet itself. This was a painful decision for Medina Sidonia. He was probably aware that there was no love lost between his naval adviser and the Rosario’s commander – the two were estranged cousins who nursed resentment over ancient personal slights. Later he acknowledged ruefully: ‘If I could have remedied the situation with my blood I would have gladly done so.’26
In stark naval tactical terms, the decision to abandon the Rosario was probably correct, although it damaged morale in the Armada. Word quickly spread that ‘no ship should take any risks for if a ship had not received any relief who would rescue the rest from any danger in which they might place themselves?’27 Two pataches were sent to take off the Rosario’s crew, but Pedro de Valdés rejected any aid, stubbornly refusing to abandon his ship with the enemy so close. In addition to the admiral, those on board included Captain Vicente Alvarez, the owner of the ship, and 228 sailors, along with a military contingent comprising Captain Alonso de Zayas and 122 soldiers of Antonio de Heria’s company, plus twenty more from Juan de Ibarra’s unit. The hold contained 50,000 gold ducats belonging to Philip II; curiously, Medina Sidonia, who must have been aware of its existence, made no attempt to remove it.
There were seven other names on the Rosario’s manifest: English Catholic exiles who had joined the Armada to help depose Elizabeth.
As darkness fell, while survivors said their evening prayers on the heaving deck, the flagship departed to rejoin the Armada, which was now two hours’ sailing time ahead. Admiral Agustín de Ojeda, commander of the auxiliary squadron, in his flagship Nuestra Señora de Pilar de Zaragoza, was detailed to stay with the helpless Rosario, together with four pinnaces. A few hours later, the sound of cannon shots echoed across the waves.
Valdés was furious at being abandoned in the face of the enemy. Although his commander was ‘near enough to me and saw in what case I was and might easily have relieved me, yet he would not do it’. He was left ‘comfortless in the sight of the whole fleet, the enemy being but a quarter of a league from me’.28
That night, Howard wrote to Walsingham from the Ark Royal, off Plymouth, describing the first day’s action:
I will not trouble you with any long letter – we are at present otherwise occupied than with writing . . .
At nine of the [clock] we gave them fight, which continued until one. [In this] fight we made some of them bear room to stop their leaks. No
twithstanding, we dare not adventure to put in among them their fleet being so strong.
But there shall be nothing either neglected or unhazarded that may work their overthrow.
Sir, the captains in her majesty’s ships have behaved themselves most bravely . . . and I doubt not will continue to their great commendation.
In a hurried postscript, Howard referred to his earlier aborted reconnaissance mission – ‘The southerly wind that brought back from the coast of Spain brought them out’ – and revisited his fears of missing the Armada with the comment: ‘God blessed us with turning back.’29 The lord admiral also added an urgent and impassioned plea for more cannon shot and gunpowder.
Drake, in a terse letter to Henry Seymour, still guarding the narrow seas off Flanders, recounted how ‘we had them in chase and so coming up to them, there . . . passed some cannon shot between some of our fleet and some of them and as far as we perceive, they are determined to sell their lives with blows’. He warned Seymour to put his ships ‘into the best and strongest manner you may and [be] ready to assist his lordship [Howard] for the better encountering of them in those parts where you are now’. He estimated the Armada to be ‘above one hundred sails, many great ships but truly, I think not half of them men-of-war’.30
Howard called a council of war aboard the Ark Royal. The day’s events were discussed, including the problems they had encountered in penetrating the Armada’s defences. Drake in Revenge was ordered to be lead ship of the English fleet tailing the Armada during the night, with a large lantern displayed at his stern so the remainder of the pursuing ships could safely judge their distance from the enemy. This was an eminently sensible order by Howard, given Drake’s experience, navigational skills, and superlative seamanship. But he had not reckoned with his maverick vice-admiral’s greed in the face of the enemy.
Medina Sidonia, in another letter to Parma, reported:
This morning the enemy’s fleet came out and having got the wind of us, attacked our rear.
During their exchange of cannon fire with the Armada, my flagship became so closely engaged that it was necessary for us to attack the enemy in force, whereupon they retired, although they still continue within sight of the Armada with the object, apparently, of delaying and impeding our voyage.
If their object had been to fight they had good opportunity of doing so today.
Reiterating his intention ‘with God’s help, to continue my voyage without allowing anything to divert me until I received from your excellency instructions as to what I am to do’, the captain-general requested Parma to supply pilots for the Flanders coast ‘as without them I am ignorant of the places where I can find shelter for ships so large as these in case I am overtaken by the slightest storm’.31 The message was entrusted to the redoubtable Ensign Gil, but continuing rough seas delayed the departure of his pinnace until the following day.
Westwards, the Rosario continued to wallow helplessly, dead in the water. At around nine o’clock, the leading ship of the shadowing English fleet, the 210-ton Margaret and John, a privateer financed by the City of London, scenting the rich sweet smell of prize money, closed on the stricken Spaniard. At the English fleet’s approach, Ojeda’s galleon and four guardship pinnaces promptly abandoned their charge and headed back to the main body of the Armada, now south of Start Point in Devon. The disabled ship was showing no lights nor any sign of life. John Fisher, the Margaret and John’s captain, cautiously brought his ship close in and fired several volleys of musket fire into the Rosario’s stern gallery. It must have seemed like disturbing a hornets’ nest, for Valdés immediately fired off two cannon shots. The English vessel replied with its own salvo and, discretion being the better part of valour, withdrew a short distance to await events.
Overnight there was a light breeze, probably with banks of fog hugging close to the surface of the sea. Howard, in Ark Royal, accompanied by two great ships, Lord Edmund Sheffield’s 1,000-ton Bear and Edmund Fenton’s 600-ton Marie Rose, led the fleet as it followed Drake’s stern lantern.
Sometime in the early hours, the light disappeared.
Most ships prudently hove to. The admiral was summoned from his cabin, but his fears were soon eased by the lookout’s call that a light could be seen again dead ahead. It was further away than expected, but it must be Drake’s lantern. In Howard’s anxious haste to catch up, most of the English fleet were left behind and scattered. Dawn on Monday 1 August revealed them only as topmasts low on the western horizon, beating before a moderate westerly wind.32
More worryingly, there was no sign of Drake’s Revenge.
Instead, Ark Royal and her two companion ships found themselves hard up against the rearguard of the Armada, now approaching Berry Head, near Brixham in Devon. The light they had been following was not Drake’s but a lantern mounted on the poop deck of an enemy warship.
Immediately recognising Ark Royal as the English flagship, Admiral Hugo de Moncada, commander of the Neapolitan squadron of four galleasses, begged Medina Sidonia to allow him to engage the three isolated English ships. His oar-powered ships, with powerful guns mounted in the bows, could ignore the vagaries of the wind and achieve considerable speeds for short distances. These, he argued forcibly, were the best vessels to attack the English warships, cut off any chance of their escape, and blow them out of the water. But for some reason, ‘this liberty the duke thought not good to permit unto him’. What was the captain-general’s motivation? Was he, like Howard, convinced that only admirals should fight admirals? Or was he yet again obeying Philip’s instructions to avoid battle if possible?
While this debate was raging in the Spanish fleet, Howard and his two ships heeled round and escaped.
The lord admiral’s great fear now was that the enemy intended to land in nearby Torbay. It would be many hours before the remainder of the English fleet could catch up, leaving the Devon coast vulnerable and unprotected.
Where was Drake? As dawn broke, Revenge was spotted hove to near the damaged Spanish squadron flagship Rosario, in company with Captain Jacob Whitton’s 300-ton Plymouth privateer Roebuck33 and two of Drake’s pinnaces.
Sometime during the night five of those seven English Catholics on board the Spaniard had slipped away by boat, only too cognisant of their fate if captured by the queen’s navy.
Valdés initially rejected Drake’s call to surrender. Later, flattered by the reputation of his adversary, he agreed to come aboard Revenge to discuss the terms of capitulation. These were generous. He was granted time to consider the offer alone, after which he yielded. His ship became Drake’s prize, but Valdés was royally entertained to dinner as Drake’s guest and his men treated as prisoners of war, possibly to be exchanged at a future date. Valdés reported afterwards: ‘He gave us his hand and word of a gentleman and promised he would use us better than any others who would come to his hands.’34
Drake could not believe his good fortune when he discovered the 50,000 gold ducats, which were immediately transferred in canvas bags to Revenge. With them went a box of jewel-hilted swords that Philip had sent as gifts to England’s noble Catholic families.35 Whitton towed the prize into Dartmouth and the ship was stripped of its ordnance, munitions and gunpowder to help alleviate the shortages in the English fleet. Most of the four hundred prisoners were sent to rot in prison. The two English captives were taken by a Captain Cely to the Tower of London as ‘rebels and traitors to their country’. One, named as Tristram Winslade, was handed to Walsingham’s officers, who were told to interrogate him ‘using torture . . . at their pleasure’.36 Forty Spaniards were held in the Bridewell gaol, ‘there to be entertained with such diet as English prisoners have in Spain’.37
On rejoining the fleet, Drake soon bluffed his way out of what could have been an awkward situation. His disingenuous version of events was quite straightforward: shortly after midnight, sighting strange sails to starboard and believing them to be Spanish, he doused his lantern and set off in hot pursuit. Later he discovered they were merel
y German Hansa merchant hulks and Revenge was set back on a course to rejoin the lord admiral as soon as possible. Imagine Drake’s surprise when, at dawn, he found himself ‘within two or three cables of the Rosario’.
Doubtless Howard deemed it impolitic to court-martial one of England’s naval heroes at a time of national emergency – even though, through his actions, the English fleet had lost both time and distance in chasing the Armada. Had the Spanish successfully landed in Torbay, the fault would have been entirely down to Drake and his lust for ducats.
Most of Drake’s contemporaries seemed more inclined to envy him than castigate his dereliction of duty, with the exception of Martin Frobisher, captain of the Triumph, who seethed: ‘[Drake’s] light we looked for but there was no light to be seen . . . like a coward [Drake had] kept by her [the Rosario] all night because he would have the spoil. He thinks to cozen [cheat] us out of our share of 50,000 ducats. But we will have our shares or I will make him spend the best blood in his belly.’38
A second, less valuable prize fell into English hands sometime after one o’clock that day. Believing the San Salvador, crippled in the previous day’s explosion, to be in danger of sinking, Medina Sidonia gave the order for her surviving crewmen to abandon ship. Within her forward magazine were 130 barrels of gunpowder and her hold contained 2,246 rounds of cannon shot; a naval commander of more experience would have ordered her to be scuttled to prevent these munitions falling into enemy hands, but the captain-general merely cast her adrift.
Late that evening, the English fleet found the San Salvador still afloat. Howard dispatched his cousin Lord Thomas Howard in Lion and John Hawkins in Victory to claim her as a prize. On boarding the wreck, they discovered
The Spanish Armada Page 18