by Neil Hanson
Medina-Sidonia had so thoroughly abdicated from his responsibilities with the Armada that he wrote to Villejo “that he had no instructions to give me . . . he leaves affairs in such a condition that I feel it my duty to say what I think about it. There are over a thousand sick and if the men be all disembarked at once, the hospital would be so overcrowded that, although there has been nothing contagious yet, I greatly fear that something of the sort will appear. It is impossible to attend to so many sick and the men are bound to fall ill if they sleep in the ships full of stench and wretchedness . . . we have 7,000 mouths to feed—2,000 seamen and 5,000 men-at-arms—and it is pitiable to see them. No one can believe that the arrival of this letter will cause matters to be remedied; but I write it, even if it is to be put into the fire . . . Pray do not think I am saying this to urge my own claims or anything of the sort. I know all about armadas and the expenses and wages attached to them; and until something serious is to be done, I would rather serve in the accountant’s department, where if they do no favours, at least they deceive nobody with promises . . . I understand that there is a great deal of rotten foodstuff in the ships and I beg you to order it to be thrown overboard. If this is not done, someone will be sure to buy it to grind up and mix it with the new biscuit, which will be enough to poison all the armadas afloat . . . It would be very advisable to have a secret investigation of the notaries’ books, taking them by surprise before they have time to ascertain what they have on board the ships, I think there has been a good deal of laxity in this matter . . . It would be advisable for the Alcalde of the Court, or of the criminal tribunal of Valladolid to be sent . . . This would avoid all the machinery of auditors, audiences, etc, and the mere presence of the Alcalde to look after people here . . . would make them all walk with their chins over their shoulders.”
Despite the difficulties he faced, Villejo carried out his work with such efficiency that by 13 November, less than two months after the first ships had limped into port, every one of the returning soldiers and seamen had been treated for his wounds and ailments, fed, paid and found lodging. By then the Duke of Medina-Sidonia was gone. He had taken care to remain in Santander long enough to collect his own arrears of pay, the not insubstantial sum of almost 8,000 ducats in gold, and to make an unsuccessful attempt to claim an additional 20,000 ducats as a gift promised by the King, before departing for San Lucar on 5 October. Travelling by curtained horse-litter with a small escort and a mule-train to carry his baggage, Medina-Sidonia was taken home by a circuitous route, avoiding many towns for fear that the leader of the vanquished Armada might be abused and stoned by the angry citizens, as indeed happened at Valladolid. His cousin, the Constable of Castile, rode with him as far as Burgos, and Medina-Sidonia stayed with the Count of Oropesa when he reached the banks of the Tagus, but otherwise he seems to have avoided the houses of noble families, where he would scarcely have been a welcome guest; there were few in the whole of Spain who were not grieving over the loss of at least one son.
He eventually reached his home at San Lucar on 24 October and in time regained his health. He went on to serve Philip and his son, Philip III, for another twenty years but he never recovered from the blow to his honour and his good name; some of his critics even compared him to Sancho Panza. Nor had he seen the last of Spanish humiliations. In 1596 a huge Anglo-Dutch fleet of 110 ships attacked and captured Cadiz. The city was sacked and the treasure fleet burned by its own men before it could be captured. In all, 34 ships were destroyed and cargo worth four million ducats was taken, in addition to the value of the lost ships and guns. Medina-Sidonia, once more commanding the land forces of Andalusia, blamed the King’s failure to supply money, guns or powder and shot, and the poor quality of the defending troops, but he did not enter the city until the attackers had sailed for home. Cervantes wrote a sardonic verse about the incident, ending:
Y al cabo en Cadiz, con muestra harta . . .
Triunfando entro el gran Duque de Medina.
And at last in Cadiz with a fierce display . . .
Triumphant, entered the great Duke of Medina.
As a result of this catastrophe, Philip was declared bankrupt for the second time in his reign and many financiers were ruined with him. But not even this humiliation could compare with that of the Armada. One French diplomat thought he could still detect the traces of the defeat in Medina-Sidonia’s bearing and demeanour fifteen years after the event.4
Apart from the losses of men and materiel, the defeat of the Armada had eliminated Spain’s officer class at a stroke. Santa Cruz had died before the Armada sailed, Moncada perished at Calais, de Leiva was missing, presumed drowned off Ireland, and Recalde and Oquendo both died soon after their return to Spain, the shame of defeat combining with disease and deprivation to hasten their end. After coming to harbour at Guipuzcoa, Oquendo remained in his cabin, refusing even to see his family, and died soon afterwards, on 2 October, probably of typhus. Recalde also stayed on board his ship, shutting himself away until death claimed him on 23 October, four days after his ship made port. Pedro de Valdes, de Luzon and de Pimentel were captives of the English and Dutch, and the Duke of Medina-Sidonia and Don Francisco de Bobadilla were destroyed and discredited by their experiences. “The flower of Spain’s military perished in this Enterprise and through this disaster, God punished many sins committed by our people.”
Martin de Bertendona was the only squadron commander still available for the King’s service, for Diego Flores was in disgrace, incarcerated as soon as he landed, the penalty for the flawed advice that, as the King’s chosen representative, he had offered to Medina-Sidonia. He had urged the abandonment of Pedro de Valdes and of other ships unable to maintain the Armada’s pace, had issued the orders to cut cables off Calais that had certainly cost the fleet several other ships, and had been the first to argue for an immediate return to Spain following the battle of Gravelines. “It was known in Spain that Diego Flores de Valdes . . . persuaded the Duke to break the King’s instructions, whereupon the King gave instruction to all ports where the said Diego Flores de Valdes might arrive to apprehend him.” He was duly arrested and “carried to the Castle of Santander where he was not permitted to plead his excuse.” His widespread unpopularity made him a convenient scapegoat, for none would spring to the defence of such a hated man, and he served three years in prison before being released, but he was the only one to face such public blame for the disaster.
Medina-Sidonia’s attempts to lead by consensus and his unswerving adherence to the strategy laid down by Philip seriously hindered the Armada. A more resolute and self-confident commander would have known that, whatever their specific instructions, kings and princes have always abided by one overriding principle: they reward success and punish failure. Santa Cruz or Parma would have made their own tactical appreciation and then pursued the victory by the most appropriate means. If they had failed, they would have paid with their heads, but in victory they would have been garlanded with riches and honours. Medina-Sidonia’s expertise lay in administration, not martial action, and with little personal experience to guide him he could only blindly follow the orders that his King had given him and the advice of the cabal of senior officers he had gathered around him. He also lacked the nerve—or hubris—that might have persuaded him to chance all on the sort of gamble that was second nature to Drake. As Medina-Sidonia’s biographer concluded, “a reasonable man, he did not try his luck even when luck might have been his only chance.” 5
Despite bitter criticisms of Medina-Sidonia’s conduct in dispatches sent by Recalde before his death, others, notably de Bobadilla, sprang to his defence and, perhaps mindful of his own role in forcing the office upon his unwilling subject, Philip offered no word of public criticism of the Captain General of the Armada, though some believed that only the intercession of Medina-Sidonia’s wife spared her husband from further indignities. “It was not the want of experience in the Duke, or his laying the fault upon [Diego Flores de] Valdes that excused him at h
is return, but he had smarted bitterly for it, had it not been for his wife, who obtained the King’s favour.” Yet, whatever his failings as Captain General, Medina-Sidonia’s conduct shows he was not lacking in personal courage and his flagship was always in the thickest of the action.
Although Philip sacked one of Parma’s most persistent critics, Don Jorge Manrique, with whom he had almost come to blows when the Armada lay off Calais, it did not end the gossip and speculation about Parma, who remained under a cloud. Even allowing for the failure of communications with Medina-Sidonia, there were those—perhaps including Philip—who suspected that Parma, believing that the first priority should remain the defeat of the Dutch rebels, had deliberately allowed the Enterprise of England to fail. He could hardly be blamed if he felt resentment at his treatment by Philip. His years of service had brought him no present reward or future promise, his campaigns in The Netherlands had been disrupted and diverted by the requirements of the Armada, and its arrival had been postponed so often over the course of more than a year that his men had grown sick and mutinous and had deserted in huge numbers, while his constant battle for the funds to pay and arm them must have driven him to despair. Had he moved with less than his customary alacrity on this occasion, it would have been entirely understandable.
Drake, for one, was sure that Parma would bear the brunt of Spanish blame. “It is for certain that the Duke of Medina-Sidonia stands somewhat jealous of him and the Spaniards begin to hate him, their honour being touched so near; many of their lives spent—I assure your Honour not so little as 5,000 men less than when we first saw them near Plymouth—several of their ships sunk and taken, and they have nothing to say for themselves in excuse but that they came to the place appointed, which was at Calais, and there stayed the Duke of Parma’s coming above 24 hours, yea, until they were fired from there.” There was open speculation about Parma’s fate in many European courts and Philip’s son-in-law, the Duke of Savoy, at once volunteered to take over the command of the Army of Flanders, but Parma fought back with characteristic determination. He wrote to his uncle, a cardinal in Rome, urging him to defend his reputation, and sent Philip a detailed justification of his conduct, but as he awaited a response his thoughts must have turned often to his son Ranuccio, five years old when his father rode north for Flanders, whom he had not seen since then, and who lay at the mercy of Philip’s garrison in Parma.
Ranuccio wrote to his father soon afterwards, warning him that his enemies were spreading rumours that he had betrayed Philip to Elizabeth and the Dutch rebels, and was to be made King of The Netherlands as reward for his treachery. In response, rapier in hand, Parma paraded his invasion troops through the streets and the Grande Place of Dunkirk and publicly challenged anyone to accuse him to his face—not as King Philip’s commander but as Alexander Farnese—of sabotaging the Enterprise of England. None stepped forward, but the rumours continued. Seeking to widen the divide between Parma and his King, Walsingham sent word to him that letters taken from Pedro de Valdes showed that as soon as Parma had embarked for the invasion of England, he was to have been replaced as commander of the Army of Flanders by the Duke of Pastrana. Parma chose not to believe information from such a tainted source, but the claim was true. Once more Philip had offered no public criticism of Parma, but there was a widespread belief that privately he placed at least some of the blame on him. “In truth, neither his vessels nor his army were in readiness, which caused the King ever after to be jealous of him and, it is supposed, hastened his end.”
Any criticism within Spain of Philip himself was inevitably muted; Spaniards knew well enough that voicing any complaints about their King was treason punishable by death. It was left to foreigners, including a number of gloating Englishmen, to lay the blame for the failure of the Enterprise of England at the door of its supreme architect. Writing with the benefit of hindsight, Sir Walter Ralegh had no doubt where the fault lay. “To invade by sea upon a perilous coast, being neither in possession of any port, nor succoured by any party, may better fit a Prince presuming on his fortune, than enriched with understanding.”6
Not since the Moors had conquered the Iberian peninsula had Spain suffered such a reverse and its aura of invincibility had taken a hammer blow. As Drake pointed out with understandable relish, “They did not, in all their sailing round about England, so much as sink or take one ship, bark, pinnace or cock-boat of ours, or even burn as much as one sheepcote in this land.” Throughout Catholic Europe, critics of Philip found their voices and those he had opposed found renewed strength to fight back. On 29 August Parma had sent Philip a dispatch that was a formal acknowledgement that the Enterprise of England was over, at least for that year, and withdrew the troops gathered for the invasion of England from Dunkirk, but his attempts to use them to reconquer The Netherlands ended in another humiliation. They laid siege for six weeks to the town of Bergen-op-Zoom, the gateway to Flushing, but were comfortably held at bay and then forced to retreat by the onset of winter. It was, as Queen Elizabeth remarked with pardonable smugness, after rushing 2,000 troops under Sir John Norris to the defence of the town, “no less blemish” on Spain’s martial reputation than the defeat of the Armada.
Philip’s designs were also failing in Scotland and France. With masterly understatement, Mendoza passed on to the King a report from Scotland received in early September, that “the Earl of Bothwell killed Alexander Stuart, the man who had captured the Earl of Morton, and affairs were consequently becoming somewhat strained.” Purportedly a Protestant and recently elevated to the title and made Lord Admiral of Scotland, Bothwell was secretly in Philip’s pay. “The English faction in Scotland, knowing of the understanding” between the Catholic lords and Philip, were also “greatly oppressing the Catholics with the King’s authority.” Morton was in jail and Lord Claud Hamilton was “at Court, and has taken the Protestant oath, protesting that he did not do so voluntarily, but to escape further persecution.” Robert Bruce and the Earl of Huntly sent bitter letters, reproaching Philip, Mendoza and Parma for their false promises. The Earl of Huntly could not “refrain from pointing out the long time that has passed since they first began to look for the reinforcements and the danger they are in . . . their King having embraced the English faction while they have declared themselves on the other side rather than violate their consciences, for which they have risked their lives.”
Bruce and Huntly claimed that they “would have seized the King if they had means to resist the power of England or had any assurances that aid would be sent to them. Hopes were given to the Earl of Morton . . . This is now more than three months since and there is no appearance of aid [from Philip] being sent . . . The country is in such a state that it cannot wait for the slow Spanish resolutions . . . In future it will be useless to write letters containing nothing but fair words, for these will never induce them to risk their homes and families. They wish to know first, for certain, whether the aid promised them is to be sent, and when.” With 6,000 men and the promised money, they declared that “this postern of the island, which the Englishwoman fears to lose, would be assured to us and an entrance gained into England.” Mendoza suggested that “as the Duke of Parma has so many troops, it would be well to relieve the country and provide winter quarters for them, which would prevent troublesome mutinies, by sending to the Scottish Catholic nobles the number of troops they request . . . It would compel the Queen to keep a standing army in the North, which would quite exhaust her, even if it only lasted two months,” but no troops were sent and Philip’s Scottish allies were left to their fate.7
In France, as Mendoza also glumly reported, Henri III was in high good humour and lauding the English success. “He said that what she [Elizabeth] had done lately would compare with the greatest feats of the most illustrious men of past times, for she had ventured, alone and unaided, to await the attack of so puissant a force as Spain, and to fight it while preventing the passage of the Duke of Parma’s fleet . . . It had taken Your Majesty four years to gath
er these great fleets, which had been the wonder of the world, and yet it might be said that the Queen of England had triumphed over them.” Henri also seized the chance to repay the Duc de Guise for his treachery; in December 1588, both he and his brother, the Cardinal de Guise, were murdered at Blois on Henri’s orders, an eventuality about which Philip and Mendoza had been warning de Guise for months. Henri’s action extricated him from the treacherous embrace of the Catholic League, and the death of his mother the following month also freed him from her scheming, but with Paris and most other French cities rising against him he was then forced into an alliance with Henri of Navarre. On 22 July 1589, Henri III was assassinated in revenge for de Guise’s death, leaving the path to the throne open for Navarre, the close ally of Elizabeth of England.8
Throughout 1589, Parma’s attempts to advance the reconquest of The Netherlands were hampered by a lack of funds and the Dutch naval blockade that prevented landings of Baltic grain. Coupled with harvest failures in the three previous years, it caused a famine in Flanders that affected Parma’s troops as badly as the population. Then, in 1590, Philip ordered him to divert the majority of his forces to stem the military success of Navarre in France. In concert with English troops, Navarre had inflicted a crushing defeat on the armies of the Catholic League at the battle of Ivry and stood poised to take Paris. Philip was now willing to intervene openly, using Parma’s army supported by papal troops and the forces of another Spanish client, the Duke of Savoy. Parma led his troops on a blood-soaked forced march through northern France notable even by the brutal standards of previous Spanish campaigns, and Paris was duly saved for the League, but a further intervention, in which Parma himself was seriously wounded, was necessary the following year to save Rouen from Navarre.