A strong, almost wintry wind set the colorful pennants and flags flying. Each ship was "furnished and beautified with trumpets, streamers, banners, warlike ensigns, and other such like ornaments," gilded and painted, and as they fluttered from the masts and spars they lent the vast flotilla an air of joyous celebration. But the duke was far from joyous. He found the tasks of command irksome, and the men under him—haughty, jealous commanders who quarreled with one another and looked askance at any admiral set over them—hard to rule. Moreover, he was more fatalistic than sanguine about the Armada's chances for success. The astrologers and prophets were predicting disaster for this year, and given the unsatisfactory state of his ships and crews, they were likely to be right. Certainly the weather was no help. "Unsettled winds" bedeviled navigation, and unseasonable storms sent huge waves crashing against the coast with heavy rain and blasting
gales. It promised to be the stormiest summer in years, and the captain general imagined with dread what perils awaited his ships in the dangerous waters of the North Atlantic.
The king too was fatalistic, but with the granite certainty of one absolutely convinced that God is on his side. To King Philip, the Armada was a crusading navy, its mission a holy war. For years he had been urged to turn the might of his soldiers and his ships against England; now, at last, he had made up his mind to do so. By what saurian involutions of thought he had reached this determination no one could say, for with advancing age his abstractedness and self-absorption had increased to the point of opacity. But sometime in the mid-1580s his predestined path had become clear to him. He came to realize that all the wealth and power he had amassed in his long reign, all the gold and silver from the New World, all the lands he had seized and plundered had been brought together for a single purpose: to destroy the heretical rule of Queen Elizabeth.
With an alacrity that startled his ministers—who were accustomed to infinitely protracted decisions from the king, clouded by infinitely detailed objections—Philip ordered the preparation of an enormous fleet. It would sail for the Netherlands, where Parma would be waiting with his soldiery to commence the conquest of England. The Armada would not be itself a fleet of conquest, it would aid in the military invasion. Together, the towering warships and the fighting men in their tens of thousands would overcome England's formidable navy and much less formidable land defenses.
Just where and how the two halves of the Spanish attack force would join together was unclear. In particular, it was left vague how a fleet requiring a deep-water port was to rendezvous with a land army in a region whose one deep-water port was in enemy hands. But these and other tactical considerations were not allowed to deter the expeditious assembling of ships and men and supplies that culminated in the splendid panorama spread before Medina Sidonia's gaze in Lisbon harbor in the spring of 1588. In record time, the most formidable, the most extensive, the most intimidating naval force that ever put to sea had been assembled. Soon it would set sail, and Philip, as the English told one another excitedly, would attempt to "devour all Christendom with invasion."
The English would have been surprised to learn with what alarm their own defensive preparations were viewed by the Spanish sailors manning the Armada. "The enemy now make but little reckoning of us," said Lord Howard of Effingham—half-brother of the traitor Norfolk, and now appointed admiral of the English fleet—"and know that we are but like bears tied to stakes, and they may come like dogs to offend us." 1 In fact, among
the intelligence reports reaching the English court from Lisbon were one or two declaring the "great fear" felt throughout the Spanish fleet that England was more than adequately prepared to encounter their ships and men. 2 Drake was especially terrifying. The Spaniards called him "El Draque," the dragon, and found his powers of navigation and extraordinary luck in combat too remarkable to be explained by human abilities alone. He was a sorcerer, they said, who sailed and waged war by means of magic.
Yet taken overall, the reports were much more disheartening than encouraging. Wildly inflated estimates of the Armada's size and strength reached the council chamber: there were over two hundred ships, carrying thirty-six thousand men; there were three hundred ships, half of them giant ships of war; there were four or five hundred ships, ready to debouch onto English soil the largest land army ever assembled. 3 And it was surely assembling, the spies in Dunkirk wrote. There were thirty-seven warships in the harbor, ready to ferry Parma's men to their rendezvous with the hulking escort fleet. Horses were being brought to Dunkirk in great numbers, and all the abbeys in the region were pressed into service grinding wheat to bake biscuits for the soldiers.
So vain was King Philip of his monster fleet that he publicized its specifications. Detailed lists of the ships, their guns and their crews were available in Rome and Paris and Amsterdam in the spring of 1588, and though the numbers on these lists were inflated they were more reliable— though no more comforting to the English—than the dispatches of spies. Printers in Amsterdam, ever eager to incriminate the Spaniards, augmented the official itemization by listing the scourges and whips and instruments of torture the great ships carried in their holds. By the time these lurid documents reached England they were fleshed out by stories of how, once the invasion force landed, all adult English men and women would be tortured and killed, leaving their orphaned infants to be suckled by an army of seven thousand Spanish wet nurses—to be carried, along with the scourges and whips, in the Armada's capacious holds. 4
Throughout the stormy spring and early summer the English defense was mounted. The lords lieutenant of the counties were ordered to muster bands of footsoldiers and the nobles and gentry received messages from the queen commanding them "to attend upon her with such a convenient number of lances and light horse as might stand with their ability." In the interest of security, watches were to be set in all towns by night and all suspicious persons detained. The hunt for priests and for the recusants who concealed them was intensified, for no one could predict what English Catholics might do once their Spanish coreligionists came ashore in force. All along the coasts, villagers were told to prepare beacons, to be lit as
warning fires when the Armada hove into sight. Nothing of possible use to the invaders was to be left unguarded; even cattle grazing near the sea were driven inland, to prevent them from falling into Spanish hands.
An ingenious if somewhat makeshift barrier was erected to block the passage of any enemy ships up the Thames. Huge, heavy chains and ships' cables were locked together and stretched across the river from Gravesend to Tilbury, held in place by a cordon of small boats anchored in the river and by a hundred and twenty tall ships' masts laid end to end. 5
But the main line of defense was the navy, and in addition to Admiral Howard's main fleet there were two smaller squadrons, one at Plymouth under Drake, who was named vice admiral, and another light squadron to patrol the Channel, headquartered at Dover. A full complement of sailors was mustered ('There is here the gallantest company of captains, soldiers and mariners that I think ever was seen in England," the ebullient admiral remarked), and even the Thames watermen were called to serve. Carpenters and shipwrights had labored to fit the ships until, in Howard's words, "there was never a one of them that knows what a leak means," though this had often meant working by torchlight at night as well as during the day, and persisting despite the "extreme gales of wind" that lashed at the harbors.
By June the fleet was ready, the ships dancing out the recurrent storms "as lustily as the gallantest dancers at the court." Ashore the trained bands were beginning to converge on Tilbury, designated as the headquarters of the land forces. If any resisted serving the queen in that perilous hour, no record of their resistance remains—though there was some concern on the part of the country people that taxes levied to support the soldiers might become a permanent burden. For many the approaching confrontation with the Spaniards must have come as a great relief. To meet at last the enemy they had dreaded for so many years can only have filled th
em with a sort of millenarian exhilaration. Whether they prevailed or were defeated, the outcome would at least be clear, the long uncertainty ended. "It was a pleasant sight," a contemporary wrote, "to behold the soldiers as they marched toward Tilbury, their cheerful countenances, courageous words and gestures, dancing and leaping wheresoever they came."
As the English marched toward Tilbury and their expected rendezvous with the enemy, the ships of the Most Fortunate Armada were foundering in a howling storm off Cape Finisterre.
Since leaving Lisbon in early May, the fleet had been overtaken by a series of disasters. First contrary gales had kept them windbound off the Portuguese coast, with some ships unable to hold their own against the
headwinds and drifting off far to the south. Then, once the fleet finally began its northward progress—traveling with exasperating slowness because of the leaden pace of the supply ships and the fitful, unpredictable winds—the men began to fall sick from drinking foul water and eating rotten food. The green barrel staves were taking their toll. Cask after cask of provisions was opened and found to be stinking and crawling with worms; only the rice was unspoiled. Then, just as the captain general was about to halt the expedition, a sudden tempest had arisen, scattering the vessels and seriously damaging some of them, and forcing a general run for port.
After so many delays and catastrophes it was hard to see the beneficent hand of God guiding the Armada's destiny. June, so Medina Sidonia had been led to understand, was the best sailing month of the year, when calm seas and fair winds prevailed even in the roughest waters. Yet June had been even more stormy than May. If God could not seem to provide a safe passage even in the most halcyon season of the year, then perhaps it was a sign that he meant the fleet to fail in its mission.
Yet such a suggestion hardly seemed credible. How could God be displeased with an undertaking which in every particular bore the stamp of a holy crusade? The ships had been christened with the names of the saints: San Francesco, San Lorenzo, San Luis and San Martin. Holy images and crusading crosses had been painted on every waving ensign and pennant. The flagship's principal banner, blessed with elaborate ceremony in Lisbon cathedral just before the fleet's departure, carried on its face the crucified Christ and on its back the Virgin, her eyes upraised in supplication. "Ex-surge, Domine, " read the scroll beneath, "et judica causam tuam!" ''Arise, O Lord, and vindicate thy cause!"
None of the usual vulgarities incident to expeditions of sailing men were allowed to defile this sanctified campaign. Before leaving the harbor the ships had been swept clear of prostitutes, and the men had purged themselves of their sins and communicated in the cathedral. Nearly two hundred monks and friars sailed with the fleet to perform daily masses and lead the crews in prayer. At sunrise and sunset the ships' boys gathered at the mainmasts to sing religious hymns, and the sailors were dissuaded from indulging in "profane oaths dishonoring the names of our Lord, our Lady and the saints." The watchwords for each of the days of the week—for Monday, Holy Ghost, for Tuesday, Most Holy Trinity, for Wednesday, Saint James, for Thursday, the Angels, and so on—were a pious reminder of the Armada's transcendent purpose. "From highest to lowest," King Philip's instructions to the men read, "y° u are to understand that the object
of our expedition is to regain countries to the church now oppressed by enemies of the true faith. I therefore beseech you to remember your calling, so that God will be with us in what we do."
''God will be with us"—so Medina Sidonia had believed, especially after a most holy man, a friar, had expressed to him his most profound certainty that Spain would be the victor in the coming contest. His officers too, men of long experience in battle, seemed serenely content to anticipate a victorious outcome, though they were candid in admitting that the English would have the advantage of them in ordnance and maneuverability. "We fight in God's cause," one of them explained. "We are sailing against the English in the confident hope of a miracle."
Yet as he sat in his flagship in the harbor of Corunna, surrounded by his storm-battered ships, the captain general lost heart. The expedition might be in God's hands, but the immediate responsibility was his own, and he could not in conscience proceed with it. Even an inexperienced sailor such as he was could see that the galleys, formidable though they might be in Mediterranean waters, were holding up badly as oceangoing ships. The bulky merchantmen listed badly and lagged far behind the more responsive vessels. The storm had underscored the fleet's vulnerability, but even without it there would have been reason enough to reconsider the entire venture.
'To undertake so great a task with forces equal to those of the enemy would be inadvisable," Medina Sidonia wrote in a sobering letter to King Philip, "but to do so with an inferior force, as ours is now, with our men lacking in experience, would be still more unwise." "I am bound to confess that I see very few, or hardly any, of those on the Armada with any knowledge of or ability to perform the duties entrusted to them." He particularized the difficulties one after another, hoping that his sovereign, with his logical mind and reverence for detail, would find the disadvantages overwhelming. "I have tested and watched this point very carefully, and your majesty may believe me when I assure you that we are very weak," he concluded. "The opportunity might be taken, and the difficulties avoided, by making some honorable terms with the enemy."
Philip found the duke's letter disconcerting, especially as Parma, in the Netherlands, took the same overall view. (Parma's army had fallen from thirty thousand to seventeen, which made him doubt whether an invasion of England could be attempted without leaving too few men behind as garrison troops.) But it did not disconcert him for long. Human limitations, however severe, could not be allowed to impede a divinely appointed mission. At the Escorial, the masses and prayers in the huge, ornate royal chapel went on day and night; in the towns and villages of Spain statues
of the Virgin and the saints were carried in procession through the streets to ask God's blessing on his Invincible Armada. The captain general must have faith that all would be well, that the troubles he faced would be surmounted. King Philip ordered him to proceed.
Obediently Medina Sidonia. complied, and on July 12, with his fleet re-victualed and repaired, he gave the command to weigh anchor.
A week later, on the afternoon of July 19, an English captain sighted the Spanish fleet while his bark was cruising the mouth of the Channel. He came into Plymouth to report. By evening the beacon fires were burning along all the headlands, their thick columns of smoke and red glow visible far inland and out across the Channel to Dunkirk. Within hours the chain of warning lights had spread far to the north and west, until by morning it had reached the Scots border. The Spanish were upon them. The great battle was at hand.
Three days after word reached the capital that the Armada was within striking distance of the English coast, the queen appointed Leicester to be commander of the Camp Royal at Tilbury. The appointment warmed the heart of the sick old earl, who ever since his return from the Netherlands campaign had suffered nearly as much from Elizabeth's coldness and angry neglect as he did from the illness that was slowly killing him. His old age was proving to be harsher and bleaker than he could have imagined. His marriage had grown cold and was in any case disfigured by bereavement. (His son by Lettice had died in infancy—of epilepsy, so Leicester's enemies said, as a punishment from God for the father's immorality.) A sensational book, Leicester's Commonwealth, revived in lurid detail every scandal ever spread about him, accusing him of seducing most of Elizabeth's women (sometimes "keeping a mother and two or three daughters at the same time"), of being "plunged, overwhelmed and defamed in all vice," of murdering those who stood in the way of his advancement and generally of making himself the most hated man in England, which he very probably was. The years of lechery and criminality had left him "broken within and without," the anonymous author said, and in 1588 the phrase was not far wrong.
The hatred he aroused, and his wealth and apparent power at court, made the earl
a target for assassination. Several of the plots against the queen included killing Leicester as well, and during 1587 a conspiracy had come to light that envisioned his murder by one of a grisly variety of means. Either he was to be killed when his house at Wanstead was burned, or he was to be poisoned, possibly by a lethal liquid slipped into his perfume. 6
Early in 1588 Leicester wrote to Elizabeth "beseeching her to behold his wretched and depressed estate, and restore him to some degree of her
former grace and favor." Her belated reply had been the appointment as commander of Tilbury, and even though he realized that the command was a restricted and somewhat honorific one, he accepted it gladly. The title was grander than the post itself: Lord Steward Her Majesty's Lieutenant Against Foreign Invasion.
Elizabeth sent Leicester off to Tilbury with words of "great comfort," spurring him to squeeze the maximum of activity out of his aging frame and inflating his self-importance to new heights. "Nothing must be neglected to oppose this mighty enemy now knocking at our gates," he wrote to the council, dashing off the letter in great haste while en route from Gravesend to Chelmsford to supervise the raising of troops. "There is no looking back now to any oversight past." Present oversights offended him, however. There were too few officers appointed to serve under him, an implied insult to his rank. And he was jealous of Hunsdon, appointed to command the special forces raised to protect the queen; he asked the council to word Hunsdon's commission "so as not to interfere with his own authority." 7 He tangled with the arrogant earl of Oxford, who refused the command Leicester offered him and made such a disdainful nuisance of himself that the earl was "glad to be rid of him" after he stalked off in anger.
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