a very pitiful sight, the deck of the ship fallen down, the steerage broken, the stern blown out and about fifty poor creatures burnt with powder in the most miserable [way]. The stink in the ship was so unsavoury and the sight within, that Lord Thomas Howard and John Hawkins shortly departed.
Captain Fleming, who had brought news of the Armada’s arrival to Howard, was deputed to tow the San Salvador into Weymouth on the Dorset coast. There she was stripped of her gunpowder and munitions, which were ferried to the English ships out at sea by a fleet of small coasters.
Some of the Cornish militia, ordered to march eastwards to reinforce the neighbouring counties, thought they had done more than enough to serve their queen. The Spanish fleet had passed their coast and now it was someone else’s problem. Their minds were on the harvest back home and these reluctant soldiers decided to slink away from their commanders and their colours.39
– 7 –
FIRESTORM
It was devised to put [the Armada] from their anchor and [eight] ships were allotted to the fire to perform the enterprise; among them the ship I had in charge, the Barque Talbot . . . So now I rest like one that had his house burnt and one of these days I must come to your honour for a commission to go a-begging.
Henry White to Sir Francis Walsingham, Margate, Kent, 8 August 1588.1
On 23 July 1588, the Privy Council instructed the lords lieutenants of the English counties to mobilise their forces and, within six days, to send those earmarked to repel the invasion to Stratford by Bow in Essex as ‘the Spanish fleet has now of late been discovered again on the seas’. In addition, a further six thousand men were based in Kent, facing Parma’s threatening forces in Flanders. As English military planners remained uncertain exactly where the invaders might splash ashore, the remaining local militia should be ready ‘upon the firing of the beacons to . . . impeach such attempt as the enemy may make to land his forces in any place’. In addition, the lieutenants were told to ensure good order in every town and ‘to stay and apprehend all vagabonds, rogues and suspected persons that are like to plod up and down to [cause] disorders and if any such be found . . . tending to stir trouble or rebellion, to cause such to be executed by martial law’.2
During that month filled with apprehension and anxiety, Leicester was commissioned lieutenant and captain-general of Elizabeth’s armies ‘in the south parts’ to fight not only the invaders but any ‘rebels and traitors and other offenders and their adherents attempting anything against us, our crown and dignity’ and to ‘repress and subdue, slay or kill and put to death by all ways and means’ any such insurgents ‘for the conservation of our person and peace’.3 A Captain Cripps was appointed provost marshal to execute these draconian legal sanctions. To avoid the danger of the militia having fifth-columnist recusants in their ranks, each officer and soldier had to swear an oath of loyalty to Elizabeth before their muster-masters.4 The nightmare spectre of large-scale Catholic support for a Spanish invasion was still seen as a clear and present danger to the English throne.
Richard Rogers, pastor of the parish of Westerfield, near Ipswich in Suffolk, recorded in his diary: ‘We are now in peril of goods, liberty [and] life by our enemies the Spaniards and at home, papists in multitudes ready to come upon us [as] usurpers.’ His parishioners marked the departure of their local militia by fasting for their success.5
A proclamation warned against the ‘wicked and traitorous lies’ that suggested the Spanish were merely trying to defend English Catholics. The truth, according to the English government, was that a defeated England would be ‘subject to the Pope’s will and the crown . . . translated to . . . a foreign potentate as he shall name . . .’ There would be ‘a tyrannical conquest . . . by depriving of her majesty and by slaughter of all her subjects, both noble and others, as shall, for their conscience towards Almighty God, persist in the true profession of Christian religion . . . and their allegiance towards her majesty’. This ‘crown, kingdom, country and ancient liberty, wherein it has remained and been inhabited with kings and people of . . . English blood more than this five hundred years’ was now facing its gravest threat.6
The Tudor propaganda machine grew more strident as the Spanish fleet appeared on England’s southern doorstep, delivering a terrifying message of genocide and ethnic cleansing to stiffen a fearful population’s resistance. Mendoza’s spies reported that Elizabeth’s ministers, ‘being in great alarm, made the people believe that the Spaniards [are] bringing a shipload of halters in the Armada to hang all Englishmen and another shipload of scourges to whip women, with 3,000 or 4,000 wet nurses to suckle the infants. It is said that all children between the ages of seven and twelve would be branded in the face so that they might always be known. These and other things of the same sort greatly irritated the people.’ A rumour at court claimed ‘the Spaniards have orders from their king to slaughter all English people, men and women, over the age of seven years’ – a story that later spread throughout London. ‘We know that the only object of this is to incense the people against the Spaniards,’ one spy commented.7
While the Armada sailed up the English Channel, all foreigners were forbidden to leave their houses and their shops were closed up.8 If all of this was less than subtle misinformation, it served to fuel existing rampant xenophobia, always a prominent attribute of the English character during the Tudor period (if not now, more than four centuries later).9 Petruccio Ubaldini, chronicler of the Armada campaign, was continually harassed in the London streets and asserted ruefully that it was easier ‘to find flocks of white crows than one Englishman who loves a foreigner’.10
There were indications that the prospect of a Spanish invasion aroused unexpected patriotism even among the most hardened recusants. Some of those interned in Wisbech Castle petitioned Burghley to be allowed to fight as ordinary soldiers alongside their Protestant countrymen. Their offer was politely rebuffed by the lord treasurer, who pointed out that shutting them up would be more helpful to the queen ‘than the help of many hands’.11
Such loyalty did not always burn brightly in the hearts of Elizabeth’s untrained and ill-armed soldiers. Later, as the Armada anchored off Calais, the four thousand militia based in frontline Dover deserted in large numbers, possibly because of their lack of pay, but more probably through abject fear at what was happening immediately across the English Channel. Philip’s agents observed that they could only muster twenty-two companies of one hundred men each and were ‘in very poor condition’.12 The port’s defences were stiffened by importing a contingent of eight hundred Dutch musketeers.13 There were also disquieting uncertainties about the faithfulness of the inhabitants of Kent. Walsingham’s omnipresent informers reported that some publicly rejoiced ‘when any report was [made] of [the Spaniards’] good success and sorrowed for the contrary’ whilst others contended that the Spanish ‘were better than the people of this land’.14
Ministers were meeting in almost permanent and frenetic session at Richmond Palace, upriver from London, as the running battle unfolded off the south coast. Previous sins of omission and procrastination over expenditure were dreadfully revealed. Defensive works which should have been finished weeks ago had to be rushed through. Sir Robert Constable, lieutenant of the ordnance, was ordered to send ‘as many wheelbarrows as he can conveniently provide, or in lieu, twenty dozen baskets or more’ to the uncompleted fort at Gravesend, to enable the sweating labour force to complete its earth and timber fortifications.15 Lord Buckhurst was urged not to dismiss his forces in Sussex just yet ‘though their lordships do not think the Spanish Navy will or dare attempt to land on that coast, being followed by the lord admiral’. Five lasts of gunpowder were dispatched to Portsmouth for Howard’s fleet and a similar amount to Brentwood in Essex, for Leicester’s army.
Elizabeth’s ministers were also forced to intervene in the exasperating quarrel between the still warring Earl of Sussex and Marquis of Winchester in Hampshire, politely emphasising that it was the queen’s pleasure ‘that the
y should dispose of themselves to better agreement, [it] being requisite that in this troublesome time that no unkindness should arise’. Patiently, they explained that a thousand men ‘might suffice to defend Portsmouth until her majesty’s navy might come to give them succour if occasion served’. Sir John Norris’s orders for its defence ‘should be observed and not altered for breeding inconvenience and contention’.16
Sir Henry Seymour, awaiting Parma’s departure, was desperate for gunpowder, ‘humbly praying’ the council to send supplies for which he had begged ‘diverse times’ previously. The following day, his appeals were answered: ten lasts were sent to Kent for his ships, ‘five by carriage over land and five by sea . . . with all expedition’. But Elizabeth had allowed the former monastic building of the Maison Dieu (God’s House) in Dover to fall out of use as a victualling establishment, so provisions for Seymour’s squadron had to be sent by water from Rochester and London. Richard Barry, lieutenant of Dover, was instructed ‘to cause such provision of beer to be brewed . . . in Dover, Sandwich or other [of] the Cinque Ports . . . for the use of her majesty’s navy’.17 War at sea was a thirsty business.
In the first week of August, four thousand Essex militia arrived at West Tilbury, on the northern shore of the Thames estuary, ‘upon very good ground . . . for the defence of this coast’ as Leicester reported to Walsingham. ‘They [are] forward men and [are] all willing to meet with the enemy as ever I saw.’ Such was the hustle in concentrating the army, that they carried no food with them ‘so that at their arrival here, there was not a barrel of beer or a loaf of bread for them. Enough after twenty-mile (32.19 km) march to have been discouraged and to have mutinied, but all with one voice . . . said they would abide more hunger than this to serve her majesty and the country,’ Leicester noted approvingly. He had sought one hundred tuns (large barrels) of beer to await their arrival but these had not been delivered, so he delayed the march of a further thousand men from London ‘till we may provide for them here’. Food and drink for the army was going to be a problem, as Leicester had discovered.
I did two whole days before the coming of these make proclamation in all market towns for victuallers to come to the place where the soldiers . . . encamp and to receive ready money for it but there is not one victualler come in to this hour.18
Reading the letters and dispatches written during those days of national peril, one senses something approaching a barely controlled panic gripping Elizabeth’s government. Walsingham writes of ‘more travail than ever I was in before’ and was horrified when he heard of sailors deserting from Howard’s and Seymour’s ships. The spymaster had also received reports that Parma ‘is looked to issue out presently’ and for security, ‘has suffered no stranger this seven or eight days to come to him or to see his army and ships, but he has blindfolded them’.19
Henry Carey, First Lord Hunsdon, lord chamberlain and the queen’s cousin, had also been appointed lieutenant general commanding the army to protect her person. This force, totalling almost 29,000 infantry and 4,400 cavalry, was to concentrate at St James, on the western edge of London. The counties would also contribute a further 10,000 reinforcements to be mustered in London by 7 August.20
Abroad, the Dutch parliament had answered Elizabeth’s appeals for assistance and had stationed their admiral, Justin of Navarre, with twenty-four ships to blockade the Flemish coast to stop Parma’s force crossing the Dover Straits. Another thrity-two vessels were off Sluys and 135 were patrolling outside Antwerp. But some Dutch leaders suspected that Spanish troops would attack Holland and Zeeland rather than England and had stopped any reinforcements being sent to Nassau’s squadron. Seymour, in the Downs off Kent, observed wryly: ‘The Hollanders are not with us and . . . I think [the Dutch] desire more to regard their coast more than ours.’21
King James VI of Scotland proved a stauncher ally, at least on paper. He wrote to Elizabeth – ‘Madam and dearest sister’ – promising everything at his command to assist the fifty-four-year-old childless queen to defend her country. A cynic would suspect he already had his eye firmly fixed on the succession to the English crown, as he affirmed that ‘in times of straits, true friends are best tried’ and he counted himself such a friend to Elizabeth and her subjects:
This time must move me to utter my zeal to the [Protestant] religion and how near a kinsman and neighbour I find myself to you and your country.
I . . . hereby offer unto you my forces, my person and all that I may command to be employed against [ . . .] strangers in whatsoever fashion and by whatsoever means as may best serve for the defence of your country wherein I promise to behave myself not as a stranger and foreign prince but as your natural son and compatriot in all respects.
He prayed that Elizabeth could resolve the crisis ‘with all possible speed’ and wished her ‘a success convenient to those that are invaded by God’s professed enemies’. James concluded: ‘I commit, madam and dearest sister, your person, estate and country to the blessed protection of the Almighty.’22
Meanwhile in the Channel, west of the Portland Bill isthmus in Dorset, Medina Sidonia had changed the shape of the Armada following another council of war late in the afternoon of Monday 1 August. Worried about the prospect of a simultaneous frontal attack by Seymour’s ships in the east and an assault from the rear by Howard’s squadrons, he divided his warships into two flotillas to protect his hulks, travelling at only two or three knots in the centre of the formation. The larger rearguard of forty-three ships was commanded by Don Alonso de Leyva and included the Portuguese galleons San Mateo, San Luis and San Francisco de Florencia and the Biscayan Santiago, together with the galleasses. The duke himself led the smaller vanguard of about twenty galleons.23 With the memories of the Biscayan galleons fleeing during the previous day’s fighting still raw in the captain-general’s mind, his written orders warned grimly that the commander of any ship that quit its station would be hanged immediately. Provost marshals and hangmen accompanied the orders when they were delivered by pataches, to reinforce the import of his message.24
Howard wrote to Walsingham requesting urgent reinforcements: ‘I pray [you send] out to me all such ships as you have ready [for sea at] Portsmouth with all possible speed. They shall find us steering east-north-east after the fleet. We mean so to course the enemy as that they shall have no leisure to land.’25
That night the wind dropped. Both combatant fleets found themselves becalmed in Lyme Bay, off the Dorset coast. Dawn at five o’clock on Tuesday 2 August brought a light north-easterly breeze which later veered to the south-east. The Armada had Portland Bill almost abeam to port and the wind direction provided them with the weather gauge for the first time since they had passed the Eddystone Rock. Medina Sidonia ordered Hugo de Moncada to attack the leading English ships with his Neapolitan galleasses, but possibly because of his rebuffed plea to attack Howard and his isolated ships twenty-four hours earlier, he huffily declined. The English took advantage of this hiatus, with the lord admiral’s ship heading a line of galleons, sailing close to the wind, to pass the Spanish left or northern flank inshore and win back the weather gauge. But Medina Sidonia led his squadron to cut him off, forcing the English ships to come about and head south-east. Martin de Bertendona’s Levantine flagship Ragazona tried to board one ship, possibly Ark Royal, but she deftly turned seaward and quickly opened the range between them, pursued by the San Marcos, San Luis, San Mateo, Rata Santa María Encoronada and other vessels of the socorro.
By nine o’clock, the engagement was four miles (6.44 km) off Portland and had developed into a confused series of skirmishes with Howard’s agile ships still out-manoeuvring any attempts to board them. A separate English squadron of five armed merchantmen (Centurion, Merchant Royal, Margaret and John, Marie Rose and Golden Lion) led by Martin Frobisher’s mighty 1,100-ton Triumph, found itself becalmed just south of Portland Bill and the captain-general, seeing a possibly decisive naval coup, ordered Moncada’s red-and-gold-painted galleasses to attack the group.
Frobisher’s ships were not as helpless as they seemed. They may well have been stationed as a trap, to take advantage of the notorious seven-knot tidal race that passes immediately south of Portland Bill, caused by ‘The Shambles’, a shingle and shell bank just to the south-east. With Moncada’s San Lorenzo in the lead, the galleasses opened fire with their powerful bow guns on Frobisher and a smaller ship which soon seemed to be in trouble, as her crew were seen jumping into their boats. But as much as the galleasses tried to close on Triumph, using their oars as well as sails, they were swept back, the turbulent waters of the Portland Race threatening to swamp them. The English gunfire had been directed at the rowers and some had been cut to ribbons, their oars becoming hopelessly entangled as they slumped lifeless on their benches. An officer in the Zúñiga said that while they were attacking Frobisher and two other ships
five of the enemy’s galleons bore down on the galleasses, the wind at this time [one o’clock] having suddenly shifted [to the south] so that the enemy had it astern while we had it against us.
Consequently none of our ships could come to our aid. The galleasses therefore had to run and join the rest of the Armada.26
Medina Sidonia was unsympathetic at their plight. He sent a senior officer to Moncada to ‘say aloud to Don Hugo . . . certain words which were not to his honour’27 and that night sent a note to him that declared harshly: ‘A fine day this has been! If the galleasses had come up as I expected, it would have gone badly for the enemy.’28
The Spanish Armada Page 19