by J. D. Davies
‘He is finished, My Lord,’ said Tom Carver, echoing Leveson’s words at about four of the clock.
‘When he has only one galley left, Master Carver, or preferably none, then I will consider him finished. Then I will be avenged. Then we will have proven that galleys are no match for ships. Only then.’
Our shot continued to rain down on Spinola’s galleys. By now, the half dozen that remained were little better than wrecks. I dreamed of boarding, but we had too few boats. We had too few men. Instead, all I could do was to watch helplessly as, a little after five, Spinola finally gave up the fight. The six shattered galleys slipped out of the bay to the south and west, then turned along the coast for the safety of Lisbon and the Tagus. The great general, the invincible Spinola, was running from the guns of Matthew of Ravensden. But still the triumph felt hollow.
‘Wind’s too light to overtake them, My Lord,’ said Tom Carver.
‘I see that, damn you!’
I stormed below, poured myself a jug of ale, and downed it in one. As I refilled the jug, I looked out of the stern window toward the carrack. Then I remembered Admiral Sir Richard Leveson’s promise upon his word of honour. And I smiled.
Two boat crossings under white flags followed. The third bore me toward the carrack, my boat’s crew taking care to keep us under her lee, away from the fire of the guns ashore. As we drew nearer, I marvelled at the extraordinary size of the ship, her many decks carrying her far higher out of the water than any ship England possessed. She had taken many balls in the hull, but none seemed to have breached her timbers. She was a floating fortress, and as such, she deserved the treatment that any warrior of honour would afford to a fortress under siege.
As I stepped onto the deck, her captain came forward to greet me and bowed low in the florid Spanish fashion. He was taller than the average Don, and fairer. I had a speech ready in my mind, fashioned in both fluent Latin and passable Spanish, but this fellow surprised me by greeting me in perfect English.
‘I am Don Antonio de Guzman, captain of His Catholic Majesty’s carrack the Saint Valentine. Whom do I have the honour of addressing?’
Taken aback by being addressed so fluently in my own tongue, I neglected the niceties of honour.
‘Your English is notable, Captain. The best of any man of your nation I’ve ever encountered, in truth.’
‘I was born in Kent, sir, whence my mother’s family hailed for generations untold. My father was in the retinue of our late King Philip, when he was your King Philip too, married to the late Queen Mary. But your name, sir?’
‘I am Quinton,’ I said, ‘the Earl of Ravensden.’
It was as though Antonio de Guzman had been struck in the face. I heard murmuring among his men, all around us on the deck, and saw not a few cross themselves.
The captain of the Saint Valentine recovered himself, and bowed again.
‘It is a great honour, My Lord of Ravensden. A very great honour. Shall we go below and take a glass of Jerez?’
‘I would gladly take a glass with a Kentish man, Captain de Guzman, as long as we discuss terms over it.’
De Guzman lived in some state. His great cabin was hung with tapestries and adorned with silks. The deck above our heads was painted with a rustic scene that I took to be the Adoration of the Shepherds. A weighty golden crucifix formed the centrepiece of his personal altar, set against the starboard side. It was a floating throne room, hardly the great cabin of a ship that had endured a two-year voyage from hell.
‘Now, My Lord,’ said the captain, ‘my mother taught me plain speaking, after the English fashion, and thus I will not demean you with prevarication.’
‘I am glad to hear it, Captain de Guzman. I have encountered too much of Spanish prevarication in my time.’
He blanched a little at that, but continued nonetheless.
‘My officers and I have considered our situation and find it, shall we say, disadvantageous, especially now that General Spinola has seen fit to withdraw himself. But, of course, it will be difficult for you to take this ship out from under the guns of Sesimbra. Therefore, we have a number of terms that we would offer you, My Lord.’
‘You have terms that you would offer me? I shall be interested to learn of them, Captain. Most intrigued, in fact.’
‘First, my men and I, with all our arms, to be allowed to go ashore this very night. Second, that although you may have the cargo, the ship will remain here, at anchor, in the possession of King Philip. Third, the Saint Valentine will continue to fly the flag of Spain, and we shall not be compelled to lower it.’
I set down my glass of Jerez and looked directly at de Guzman. Yes, by God, he really was being serious.
‘Well now, Captain, those are terms indeed. You may have learned your English from your mother, but you learned everything else from your father, it seems.’ I drew breath. ‘Your pride. Your arrogance. Your high-flown detachment from the real world. So as to your so-called terms, Captain de Guzman – the first I accept, because I am merciful, just as my Queen is merciful. You have fought well and you have suffered much, both in your voyage and upon this day. You deserve the respect of leaving this place with your arms, with your honour intact. As for your second term…it is the finest joke I have heard since the last time I attended the playhouse, and saw a clown perform an amusing trick with a dog.’ De Guzman made to protest, but I raised a hand. And recollection of the theatre put me in mind of that fine fellow, young Iles. I knew what he would whisper to me now, were he here: lay it on, My Lord, lay it on. ‘And thus to your third term, Captain. You are in the presence of the ensigns and banners of the Queen of England. The only way in which the colours of Spain will continue to fly is trailing in the water, beneath the cross of Saint George.’
‘Lord Ravensden, this is intolerable—’
‘Intolerable, is it? Very well, Captain de Guzman. If my terms are refused, I shall return to my longboat this very minute. And you know what that means, Captain. We will come in our boats, and we will burn your ship, whether or not you and your men are in it.’ Lay it on. ‘I am Matthew Quinton, Earl of Ravensden, Baron Caldecote, Privy Councillor of England, el diablo blanco. Cross me, and I will summon forth the ghosts of Drake, Hawkins and Essex. The four of us, I alive and they dead, will plague the length and breadth of Spain like the veritable horsemen of the apocalypse. Your children will not sleep for fear. Your women will run screaming into the night. Your grandparents will turn over in their coffins and try to dig themselves deeper into the soil.’ I turned to leave. ‘Think upon it, Captain. Think upon it well. A most excellent Jerez, though. My compliments upon your excellent taste, sir.’
‘W-wait, My Lord! I beg you, be not so precipitate!’
I smiled and turned back to face Captain Antonio de Guzman, who suddenly seemed so very much more English.
And that was how the fleet came to sail for home in company with the carrack Saint Valentine and its fabulous cargo from the Indies.
The Dowager Countess:
‘Then how great will your share be, husband?’ I demanded.
‘Ah, now, that is a matter difficult to measure,’ he said.
Of course it was. It always was.
We stood in the principal room of Ravensden House, the Earl having no time to travel into Bedfordshire. The cause of his summons to London was still a mystery; he had an appointment with Secretary Cecil at Greenwich that very afternoon.
‘Creditors, I suppose?’ I demanded. ‘The Queen, I expect?’
‘Many creditors. And, yes, the Queen. This is only the third great carrack we have taken during the entire war – there are many determined to claim a share in her, Her Majesty above all. A veritable legion of commissioners has been sent down to Plymouth to assess the Saint Valentine. There will be books and inventories galore. A shame that they will not find her as rich as she is said to be.’
He smiled, and I knew him well enough to know what that meant.
‘Not as rich, My Lord? And how would you know
that, pray?’
‘Ah now, Louise-Marie my love, there are countless things that may happen to a prize ship during a voyage. The portable goods – the gold and jewels, and such like – have a habit of vanishing. Even heavy bundles of spices may strangely disappear from a ship’s hold before she comes to an anchor, and before she suffers the scrutiny of prize commissioners. It is truly remarkable how such things happen. One could swear that the spirits of the sea simply conjure away such riches into thin air.’
‘But would such disappearances not be theft from Her Majesty’s treasury, My Lord?’
‘That would be the same treasury which can find no money to pay Her Majesty’s loyal officers and seamen, who risk their lives on her behalf each day while treasury clerks sleep comfortably in their beds? Theft is a relative term, my Countess. As, it seems, is death.’
He lifted a paper from the large pile upon the table: the papers which had awaited his attention upon his return from sea.
‘My mother’s kinsman, Stewart of Whitekirk, relates a curious tale in his latest letter. It seems a Scots ship, bound from Yarmouth for Leith, discovered a man stranded upon one of the Farne islands. This man was foreign, and fought like a colossus to avoid capture, killing four of the ship’s men. When the ship finally docked, the man was taken off by Sir George Home, Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, in person, and escorted under guard to Edinburgh Castle under a warrant from the King himself. Now why should that be, do you think? Why should one foreign castaway so excite the interest of James Stuart?’
‘You think it is your cousin, Balthasar? That he cheated death when he leapt into the sea at Alnburgh?’
‘I am certain of it, but Whitekirk is making enquiries for me, and promises to confirm the matter.’
‘Then what will you do if it is, husband? If he is in Edinburgh Castle, you cannot reach him. And King James is hardly likely to deliver him to you gratis.’
The Earl smiled.
‘No, not gratis. He is a Scot, after all. But I think I know what price James Stuart will demand.’
‘You only think you know? You, husband, who are usually so certain in all you do?’
‘There you have it, my love – if I am wrong, the price he will demand instead is my head. No doubt of it. But the letter must be written, and the horse dealing commenced. So I shall write it now, before I go to see what the hunchback wants of me.’
‘And in the interval between the letter writing and the interview, My Lord?’
I could see the look in his eye, and knew what it presaged.
‘In the interval between the two, My Lady, it would convenience me greatly if you discarded your clothing, yonder.’
The Earl of Ravensden:
‘Superlative folly,’ said Sir Walter Raleigh.
‘Superlative arrogance,’ I replied, a little more loudly.
‘Superlative extravagance!’ cried Raleigh, louder still. More than a few of the courtiers upon the shore of Greenwich Palace turned to look at us. I could swear that even the Queen’s red wig twitched in our direction, but that might have been wishful thinking upon my part.
‘Superlative error!’ I yelled.
‘Superlative madness!’ bawled Raleigh, who was out of favour (yet again). I must have been unspeakably bored, or else angry beyond measure, to have taken part with him in such a foolish schoolboy game.
In the midst of the river, the Queen’s galley Superlativa swept past, her oars cutting the water somewhat shabbily, the drum giving the beat for her mixed crew of Spanish prisoners and English beggars. There was no wind, and she was rowing against the tide, going where no man-of-war could possibly go. A fine spectacle, which proved precisely nothing. Yet Her Majesty’s ladies, surrounding their mistress like bees in the hive, applauded politely. I shook my head, but not merely at the ignorance of the simpering ladies in waiting, who would have applauded a man with a mildly unusual wart. Even after the lesson of Sesimbra, some about the Queen were still convinced that galleys were the future of England’s Navy Royal. I knew better. Raleigh knew better, hence our rare good humour with each other. And then there was the Queen herself, a frail figure a little ahead of everyone else, upon the bank of Greenwich’s shore. But less ahead than once she would have been: two ladies stood discreetly close behind her. Every single soul present that day knew they were there to catch her in case she fell. Great Elizabeth would still betray no sign of age or weakness in public: for instance, by viewing such a demonstration seated. But that, in itself, merely demonstrated how old and weak she was.
‘A fine sight, is it not?’ said Robert Cecil, appearing suddenly by my side.
‘By no means as fine a sight as a galleon under full sail, Master Secretary,’ I said.
‘Ah, you seamen…’ He nodded a greeting to Raleigh. ‘My compliments, Sir Walter, but I trust you will forgive me if I have a word in private with Lord Ravensden.’
‘There is still no prospect of my having private audience of Her Majesty, Master Secretary?’
‘Be thankful that you have your liberty and are still permitted to be about the court, Sir Walter.’
Cecil led me away, back into the gardens of Greenwich Palace. A dozen or so solicitants endeavoured to approach the Secretary, waving their petitions in front of them, but Cecil ordered two guards to block their way, and we proceeded unmolested.
‘Your fortune has turned, My Lord, these last months and years.’
‘As you say, Master Secretary. I owe all to God and to the Queen’s mercy. And to yourself, of course.’
He smiled graciously, and bowed his head. He knew it was a lie, of course, and an outrageous one at that: after all, this was the man who had taken the side of my cousin Balthasar and ordered my imprisonment in the Tower. The man who might still bring me low again, if he chose to betray my part in Gowrie’s plot; but there again, in that we were bound in a mutual bond of silence, for Cecil knew full well that I, and only I, could reveal upon oath what was said at the meeting in Theobalds Palace, so long before. And if that did not matter one jot to Elizabeth Tudor, it mattered very much to another, who would soon sit upon her throne. So yes, we were bound to each other in silence, Robert Cecil and I.
‘I brought you here to give you good news, My Lord. Two pieces of good news, in truth. First, Her Majesty has seen fit to bestow upon you a generous bounty for your part in the capture of the carrack at Sesimbra. A most generous bounty. Three thousand pounds, to be exact.’
Three thousand! Generous indeed, by Queen Elizabeth’s standards. Whether she actually had that much money in her treasury, and whether I would ever see it, were other matters.
‘I am most grateful for Her Majesty’s bounty, Master Secretary.’
‘As indeed you should be, My Lord. It is as well that Her Majesty appreciates that her captains, especially an Earl and thus a man of the most unimpeachable honour, would never seek to enrich themselves by plunder, so that the just profits of prize are concealed from Her Majesty’s treasury.’
‘As you say, Master Secretary.’
‘But in one sense, the Queen’s bounty may be seen as a down payment in anticipation of services yet to come. General Spinola has been refitting his ships at Lisbon.’ I winced: only the most profound of lubbers could possibly call a galley a ‘ship’. ‘He is sure to attempt the Channel again. For we have it upon sound intelligence that his brother has brought an army of five thousand from Milan to Flanders. Once, England would have laughed in the face of an army so small. But now…’
I could not say what was in my mind: namely, that if England was under threat, and lacked the force to oppose it, then such a perilous state of affairs could be due only to the parsimony and ignorance of this man, and of the person he served.
‘Surely, Master Secretary, the Queen’s new galleys can be set forth to counter General Spinola?’
I had my tongue firmly in my cheek, but thankfully, Cecil took me seriously.
‘Sadly, My Lord, the galley crews and their captains are as yet too raw, e
specially when set against the veterans under Spinola.’ And so they always will be, Master Secretary, for the Dons know what they are doing with galleys, and we do not. ‘No, the likes of My Lord of Nottingham have convinced Her Majesty that only the old-fashioned galleons can do the business in this instance. So, then, My Lord, we come to the heart of the matter. Her Majesty, her Privy Council and the Lord High Admiral have decreed that Sir Richard Leveson shall remain at Plymouth to cover the western Channel, and to prevent any new Spanish landing in Ireland. The eastern Channel will be covered by a new commander.’
He raised his hand and snapped his fingers. A page boy ran over, bearing a leather pouch. He reached within and handed Cecil a folded vellum parchment, secured by two wax seals bearing the unmistakeable imprints of the Lord High Admiral of England upon the one, and the royal arms of England upon the other. The Secretary contemplated it, as though wondering whether it was some dreadful mistake, and then handed it to me.
‘I give you joy of your command, My Lord Admiral,’ he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Earl of Ravensden:
Admiral of the Narrow Seas. The Saint George Cross flying at the main.
Oh, it sounded splendid.
But the reality of it, in those straitened days in the autumn of 1602, was that my ‘fleet’ consisted of one galleon, and one alone: my flagship, the Merhonour, leaky and crank after being out for so long. I had two small crompsters, the Advantage and Answer, and four Dutch ships, these but recently joined and under the command of a Vice-Admiral Cant, a somewhat inauspicious name in all respects.
And Spinola was coming.
Four days we waited. I had placed a first line of ships off Dungeness, the Merhonour inshore, then the Advantage, then two Dutchmen, large and clumsy fly-boats both. Cant was in the Downs with his other two ships and the Answer.