by Alison Weir
On 21 December the Queen appointed Charles, Lord Howard of Effingham, Lieutenant General, Lord High Admiral and Commander of the English navy, and ordered the fleet to be put on standby. There was no doubt now that Philip would send his Armada soon; she had known his plans since November: the Armada of Spanish galleons was to defeat the English fleet and pave the way for Parma, who would immediately land in England with an army from the Netherlands. When Elizabeth had been deposed and the country secured, Philip himself would arrive to claim the crown for his daughter and the Catholic faith.
According to Holinshed, as the year 1588 approached, the English people remembered that astrologers and seers had predicted 'most wonderful and very extraordinary accidents' at this time, and were deeply fearful. But the Queen, who had had her own horoscope cast, was more optimistic.
On a practical level, she and her government had begun to brace themselves for war. Harbours and land defences were strengthened, eleven new ships were built, and old ones refurbished. A chain of beacons to signal the arrival of the invasion was being set up on hill-tops throughout the kingdom. Sailors and soldiers had been recruited, and arms and stores were being requisitioned. Even so, England was far from ready to face an invasion, and when it became clear that Philip's fleet was not ready either, and would probably not come until the following summer, the Queen, never one to waste money, commanded that her own ships be demobilised.
Although she possessed undoubted courage, Elizabeth certainly did not want a war: it was not in her nature to crave military glory, and she was appalled at the expense in both money and lives. If diplomacy could bring about a solution, she would take that course, and indeed she would continue to sue for peace right up until after the Armada had sailed.
Leicester had not been invited to court for Christmas, for Elizabeth was still angry with him, and when there was no word from her in January, he wrote begging her 'to behold with the eyes of your princely clemency my wretched and depressed state'. But he was cheered to learn of her loyal refusal to countenance an attempt by Lord Buckhurst to make him answer for the mismanagement of the Netherlands venture.
The looming reality of war prompted Elizabeth to send for Leicester, and throughout the early months of 1588 he was assiduous in his attendance at Council meetings, despite worsening ill health. More vociferous than the rest, he warned Elizabeth that diplomacy would not suffice: she must further strengthen her armed forces.
In April, Elizabeth ordered the refurbishment of twelve more ships and her government instituted a programme of intensive training for her fighting forces. Drake was in favour of sailing to Spain to sabotage Philip's fleet, but she would not allow it, being concerned that her own ships would be either damaged or lost when she most needed them. Any confrontation at sea, she said, must take place within sight of the shores of England, in order to remind her sailors what they were fighting for.
She was still hoping that it might never come to war. In April, she dispatched Dr Valentine Dale, her former ambassador to Paris, to Parma to sue for peace. The commissioners for both sides met to discuss the matter on 30 May, the very day on which the Spanish Armada of 130 ships, manned by 30,000 men under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, set sail from Lisbon, bound for England. By then, the English fleet was already at battle-stations at Plymouth.
On board the Spanish ships were thousands of printed copies of a papal Bull blessing the enterprise, reaffirming Elizabeth's excommunication, and calling upon her subjects to depose her. These were to be distributed in England by the invading forces. However, when, late in June, Elizabeth's subjects learned of the existence of this Bull, they proved fiercely loyal.
In early June, Cardinal William Allen published a vicious attack on Elizabeth entitled An Admonition to the Nobility and People of England. In it, he referred to Henry VIII as the Queen's 'supposed father' and to Elizabeth as 'an incestuous bastard, begotten and born in sin of an infamous courtesan'. Elizabeth was angered and upset by these smears, and instructed Dr Dale to complain about them on her behalf to Parma. The Duke, however, said he had not read Allen's book and knew nothing of the new Bull. He was sorry for the bad feeling between his master and Queen Elizabeth, but as a soldier, he was bound to obey his orders. Even as late as 8 July, the Queen was writing to assure Parma that 'if any reasonable conditions of peace should be offered', she would not hesitate to accept them.
'For the love of Jesus Christ, Madam,' wrote the Lord Admiral, 'awake thoroughly and see the villainous treasons around you, against Your Majesty and your realm, and draw your forces round about you like a mighty prince to defend you. Truly, Madam, if you do so, there is no cause to fear. If you do not, there will be danger.'
On 17 July, Elizabeth brought the peace negotiations to a close.
The progress of the Spanish fleet had been impeded by storms, but on 19 July, what the Spaniards were referring to as the 'invincible' Armada was first sighted by the English off The Lizard. Legend has it that Drake was playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe at the time, but insisted he had time to finish the game before departing to vanquish the enemy.
As the chain of beacons flared, Elizabeth heard the news on the night of 22 July at Richmond, where the Council would meet daily in emergency session over the next few days. Robert Cecil was impressed by her calm response' 'It is a comfort to see how great magnanimity Her Majesty shows, who is not a whit dismayed.' She spoke stirring words of reassurance to Leicester, who 'spared not to blaze them abroad as a comfort to all'. The Queen's calm reaction was the result of knowing that everything possible had been done to make England ready to repel the invader, and that her navy, with its smaller, lighter and faster ships which sailed 'low and snug in the water', was, in the words of Effingham, 'the strongest that any prince in Christendom hath'.
A prayer of intercession, composed by the Queen, was read in churches. At court, a strange peace descended, for by Elizabeth's command, all squabbles between factions and feuding had ceased. Throughout the land, the nation waited, expectant and fearful.
Moving along the south coast, the stately Armada was making for the Netherlands, whence it would escort Parma's army to England. Waiting at Plymouth was the English fleet, 50 strong and flying the white and green colours of the Tudors from its masts. It was under the command of Admiral Lord Howard of Effingham, assisted by the much more experienced Sir Francis Drake; the Admiral, realising that his rank rather than his naval achievements had qualified him for his command, gallantly announced that he would 'yield ever unto them of greater experience'. Drake, in turn, behaved so 'lovingly and kindly' towards Effingham that he 'dispelled the fears about this doubtful union'.
The Admiral's flagship was the Ark Royal, formerly known as the Ark Raleigh, having been sold to the Queen by Raleigh the previous year. Effingham had been authorised by the Queen to conduct all engagements according to his own judgement. By contrast, Philip had written detailed - and sometimes unrealistic - instructions by which Medina-Sidonia was to abide.
Effingham put out to sea in pursuit of the Armada after nightfall on the 19th. There was a brief and inconclusive skirmish off Eddystone, near Plymouth, on Sunday, 21 July, followed two days later by a more vicious engagement near Portland, Dorset, in which several Spanish galleons were severely damaged. Two more were wrecked off the Isle of Wight on 25 July. The English fleet continued to shadow the Armada as it sailed east, neatly avoiding any further engagements by sailing out of range whenever the galleons prepared for battle.
Meanwhile, the shire levies had been mustered, and Leicester, who had just been appointed Lieutenant and Captain General of the Queen's Armies and Companies, had begun to assemble 4000 troops at Tilbury Fort in the Thames Estuary, ready to guard the eastern approach to London against Parma's forces. Already he had built a blockade of boats across the river.
The Queen was boldly insisting that she ride to the south coast to be at the head of her southern levies, ready to meet Parma when he came, a notion which horrified her advisers. To div
ert her, on 27 July, Leicester invited her to visit Tilbury and 'comfort' her army, assuring her that 'you shall, dear lady, behold as goodly, as loyal and as able men as any prince Christian can show you'; he himself would vouchsafe for the safety of her person, 'the most dainty and sacred thing we have in this world to care for, [so that] a man must tremble when he thinks of it'.
On that same day, the Armada anchored off Calais, not far from Dunkirk, where Parma was waiting with 16,000 troops to cross the Channel. The Dutch fleet was patrolling the sea nearby, hoping to prevent the Spanish from sailing.
The English followed the Armada to Calais, where at midnight on the 28th orders were given for five 'hell-burners', or fire-ships, packed with wood and pitch, to be sent amongst the towering galleons. The resulting inferno, fanned by high winds, caused panic and chaos, scattering the Spanish galleons and wrecking the crescent formation of the Armada, which was unable to regroup because of the winds. This meant that the little English ships would now be able to fight on more equal terms. As a result of this action, morale amongst Spanish forces was fatally weakened.
On 29 July, off Gravelines, Medina-Sidonia made heroic and not entirely unsuccessful efforts to re-form his ships before the two fleets engaged in what was to be the final battle. But the English, with greater numbers, now had the advantage, and they pressed it home. The Spaniards lost eleven ships and 2000 men, and the English just fifty men. The action was only abandoned when both sides ran out of ammunition.
Not yet knowing that the English had gained the upper hand, the Queen moved on 30 July to St James's Palace, where her security could be better assured than at Richmond, and which Lord Hunsdon, who had been designated responsible for the Queen's security when she was in the capital, immediately surrounded by a cordon of 2000 armed guards. However, Elizabeth was 'not a whit dismayed' at her peril.
It was at this time that the wind changed, forcing the Armada northwards, off course, and scattering the remaining galleons. 'There was never anything pleased me better than seeing the enemy flying with a southerly wind northward,' wrote a jubilant Drake. Effingham ordered his ships to go after them, but they could not do much more damage because they had again run out of ammunition. In fact, they had no need to do anything further, for the wind - the 'Protestant' wind, as people were now calling it, taking it to be a sign from God - and terrible storms were bringing about more destruction than they could realistically have hoped to achieve themselves.
By August, Lord Howard, having pursued the crippled remnants of the Armada as fir north as the Firth of Forth, gave up and returned south, leaving the scattered and broken ships to make their difficult way around the coasts of Scotland, Ireland and Cornwall. 'Many of them will never see Spain again,' wrote one English sailor.
Although false reports of victory had prompted premature rejoicing in Spain, by 3 August, when Medina-Sidonia ordered his remaining few ships to return home, it was clear that the Spanish had suffered the most humiliating naval defeat in their history. They had lost two thirds of their men (many dying stranded on remote beaches of wounds and sickness, or slaughtered in Ireland by the Lord Deputy's men) and forty- four ships, and many more were so badly damaged that they would no longer be seaworthy. The English, on the other hand, had lost only a hundred men, and none of their ships. But Elizabeth was cautious. This 'tyrannical, proud and brainsick attempt' would be, she observed in a letter to James VI, 'the beginning, though not the end, of the ruin of that King [Philip]'.
The Spanish fleet might have been crippled, but there remained a very real threat from Parma and his army, who were poised to cross the Channel, and awaited only a favourable wind.
Expecting an invasion at any moment, Elizabeth, 'with a masculine spirit', resolved to accept Leicester's invitation and go to Tilbury to rally her troops, and thither she was rowed in her state barge from St James's Palace on 8 August. Her councillors had pleaded with her not to go, fearing her proximity to the expected invaders and raising a host of other objections, but she overrode them, and when she wrote informing Leicester of her determination to visit the camp, he replied, 'Good, sweet Queen, alter not your purpose if God give you good health. The lodging prepared for Your Majesty is a proper, sweet, cleanly house, the camp within a little mile of it, and your person as sure as at St James's.'
Escorted by Leicester, who walked bare-headed holding her bridle, and riding a large white gelding 'attired like an angel bright', the Queen appeared before her troops in the guise of'some Amazonian empress' in a white velvet dress with a shining silver cuirass, and preceded by a page carrying her silver helmet on a white cushion and the Earl of Ormonde bearing the sword of state. Leicester had stage-managed the occasion brilliantly, incorporating much pageantry and spectacle. As the tent-flags and pennants fluttered in the breeze, and the drummers and pipers played, the Queen, with tears in her eyes, inspected the immaculate squadrons of foot soldiers, and the well-caparisoned, plumed cavalry, of which Essex was a commander, calling out 'God bless you all!' as many fell to their knees and cried aloud, 'Lord preserve our Queen!' As she passed, pikes and ensigns were lowered in respect. After a stirring service of intercession, she rode to Edward Ritchie's manor house at nearby Saffron Garden, where she stayed the night.
On the morning of 9 August, as she returned to the camp, there was a burst of spontaneous applause - 'the earth and air did sound like thunder' - and Elizabeth commented that she felt she was 'in the midst and heat of battle'. When the clamour had died down, the soldiers acted out a mock engagement, after which they paraded before her. Then, 'most bravely mounted on a most stately steed', and dressed as 'an armed Pallas' with her silver breastplate and a small silver and gold leader's truncheon in her hand, the Queen again touched their hearts by delivering the most rousing and famous speech of her reign.
'My loving people,' she cried,
we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I do assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people.
Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects, and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle to live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.
I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think it foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare invade the borders of my realm; to which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues.
In the meantime, my Lieutenant General [Leicester] shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject, not doubting but, by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of God, of my kingdom, and of my people.
At the close of this 'most excellent oration', the assembled soldiers 'all at once a mighty shout or cry did give'. Dr Lionel Sharp, one of the Queen's chaplains, was commissioned by Leicester to take down the text of her speech, and it was read aloud again the next day, after the Queen had left, to all those who had been out of earshot. Copies were widely circulated, and three decades later, Sharp gave the text to the Duke of Buckingham, whose son had it published in 1654. Leicester was convinced that Elizabeth's words 'had so inflamed the hearts of her good subjects, as I think the weakest among them is able to match the proudest Spaniard that dares land in England'.
At noon, as Elizabeth dined with Leicester in his tent, she received word that Parma was due to set sail. The Earl and his captains urged her to return to London for safety, but she protested that she
could not in honour do so, having said she would fight and die with her people. Many were moved by her courage, but 'as night approached nigh' news arrived that the danger was past, for Parma had refused to venture his army without the backing of the Spanish navy, and Philip had, with a heavy heart, seen the wisdom of this.
He was, naturally, desolated by the defeat, and retreated into his palace of the Escorial near Madrid, seeking to find consolation and understanding in prayer. 'In spite of everything, His Majesty shows himself determined to carry on the war,' reported the Venetian ambassador. Philip told his confessor he would fight on and that he was hoping for a miracle from God, but if it was not forthcoming, 'I hope to die and go to him.' His people put on mourning clothes, and walked in the streets with heads bent in shame.
'The Duke of Parma is as a bear robbed of his whelps,' wrote Drake from Gravelines on 10 August. Making her way back to a triumphal welcome in London, secure in the knowledge that the Armada would not return, Elizabeth's first consideration was to decommission her ships and dismiss her forces, so that they could go home and bring in the harvest. Only when this had been done could she begin to celebrate England's great victory and her own triumph.