The italics are mine, but indeed italics are hardly needed. The deceit of this the Master of Chivalry, the Lord of the daintiful who would not soil their fingers with commerce, is stamped upon the order like the brand upon the forehead of a criminal. Using the sore need of his country as the lure, he set out to steal the ships of England, their arms against privateers, their cargoes destined for the relief of his starving people, so that he might swell the numbers and resources of his Armada. Their crews, of course, did not cost him one scruple of remorse. They might rot in the dungeons of the Holy-house. For a frank and shameless confession of deliberate treachery there are few documents in all the royal records of the world which can hold a candle to it. Philip set his forth as plain as a pikestaff. He wanted stores and weapons, rigging and sails and big ships for the Enterprise of England, and since here they were in Spanish ports, innocent of suspicion and protected by his pledged word, his Corregidors must show the same crafty dissimulation in seizing them as the King had shown in luring them within reach. The King’s word was dirt, and he did not bother to conceal it.
The reaction of England was immediate. No doubt there were nobles in the North who welcomed in their hearts a stroke which brought “the beast which troubled the world” nearer to her punishment. But they kept their tongues silent. Philip had possessed another band of friends in the merchants of the City who had the trade with Seville in their hands, and the City was powerful then as it is today. Philip lost them the day that the Primrose anchored in the Pool. They too cried for reprisals. Even the cautious Burghley trod his scruples underfoot. And the Queen spoke for them all. With a declaration of war? War was made in those days, as in ours, without this decent preliminary. She had a swifter answer — Drake. The Commission cancelled in May was renewed and a greater authority was conceded. He was to release the confiscated ships, their cargoes and their crews, and the month of June which saw the arrival of the Primrose in the Thames was not yet over when Drake was given power to requisition what vessels he needed. On July 1st his Commission was signed. All was fervour and enthusiasm. London offered to fit out seven-score ships. An embargo was placed on Spanish goods. Drake hurried off to Plymouth and gathered about him his old comrades of the voyage round the world, Thomas Moone, his brother Thomas Drake and young Richard Hawkins. Fortunately the officers chosen for the expedition to the Azores were still available. Walsingham had sent for his son-in-law in Ireland, Captain Christopher Carleill, in November. He was now appointed Captain-General of the land forces and given the command of a ship. Martin Frobisher was once more Vice-Admiral. Edward Winter, brother to the Captain of the Elizabeth, became Captain of the second of the Queen’s ships, H.M.S. Aid, and Thomas Fenner, a fine experienced sailor, commanded the Admiral’s big man-of-war H.M.S. Bonaventure. Such a fleet was to teach Philip the penalties of treachery as had never set out from English ports before; and the lesson was not to end with the release of Philip’s confiscated plunder. Walsingham’s policy to support the resistance of the Netherlands and interrupt Philip’s communications with the West Indies was to be pressed home. When he had released the English ships, Drake was to cross the Atlantic and strike with the full force of his fleet at Philip’s possessions. Leicester would be sent openly with money and troops to Flushing. The boasted Enterprise of England would have to wait.
In the month of August, Drake had mustered in Plymouth Sound twenty-one ships and eight pinnaces. Here is a list of the ships, their captains and their tonnage:
Ships. Tons. Commanders.
H.M.S. Bonaventure — 600 — Admiral and General Sir Francis Drake. Flag-Capt. Thomas Fenner.
Primrose — 200 — Vice-Admiral Martin Frobisher.
Galleon Leicester — 400 — Rear-Admiral Francis Knollys.
H.M.S. Aid — 250 — Captain Ed. Winter.
Tiger — 200 — Lieut.-General Christ. Carleill.
Sea Dragon —— — Captain Henry White.
Thomas — 200 — Captain Thomas Drake.
Minion — 200 — Captain Thomas Seely.
Bark Talbot — 200 — Captain Baily.
Bark Bond — 150 — Captain Robert Crosse.
Bark Bonner — 150 — Captain George Fortescue.
Hope —— — Captain Edward Careless.
White Lion — 140 — Captain James Erizo.
Francis — 70 — Captain Thomas Moone.
Vantage —— — Captain John Rivers.
Drake —— — Captain John Vaughan.
George —— — Captain John Varney.
Benjamin —— — Captain John Martin.
Scout —— — Captain Edward Gilman.
Galliot Duck —— — Captain Richard Hawkins.
Swallow —— — Captain Bitfield.
An imposing flotilla. Francis Knollys was a cousin of the Queen. The three Admirals flew their flags with the authority of the Queen and under the rights and privileges of the City of London. The Queen herself had contributed men-of-war of the Royal Navy. Drake had given the Thomas, and with it the command to his young brother. Richard Hawkins, another youthful veteran, had his first ship, the Galliot Duck. It was a fleet which must fill with pride and confidence any sea-captain, but none so high as the man who already knew what the name of England meant on the high seas and how audacity overreached prestige.
But there was need for hurry. Spain must be found unprepared, and above all the Queen must not be given time to fall from her high mood upon compromise and hopes of peace. Walsingham was in a fever. “Upon Drake’s voyage,” he wrote to Leicester, “dependeth the life and death of the cause according to man’s judgement.” And Burghley, on receiving a letter from Drake, replied in words of disappointment that he had rather that the letter had come from Cape Finisterre. Twenty-one ships, however, could not be quickly armed, new-rigged, equipped and provisioned with the thoroughness upon which Drake insisted no less firmly than Magellan had done before him. The voyage was not to end with the release of the ships held in the ports of Biscay. The Enterprise of England was to be interrupted by a more serious attack upon the great towns of the Spanish Main than had ever been made before. The expedition was not merely a reprisal.
It was organized on the familiar lines. The Queen lent two ships of her navy, and accorded flag rank to the leaders, but she did not pay them, or the crews under them. It was a Joint-Stock business speculation. It must pay its own way and bring home as handsome a profit as it could to the men who had invested their money in it — Drake, Walsingham, Burghley — yes, even Burghley had put up two hundred pounds as a sign of his goodwill — and the merchants of the City. Drake hurried, not slowly but carefully, and the quays of Plymouth were still piled high with stores when the most inconvenient obtrusion imaginable descended upon him. There arrived from London post-haste, as unexpected and almost as alarming as the first parachutist soldier that ever floated down from an aeroplane, Sir Philip Sidney. The poet, the darling of the Court, the synonym of chivalry, and at the moment the Queen’s special favourite, had run secretly away from London to sail with Drake as a volunteer. It is not to be wondered at that Fulke Greville, “his loving and beloved Achates,” noticed the discountenance of “this gallant mariner.” The astonishing thing is that Sir Philip Sidney himself was blind to it. For no greater embarrassment could have befallen Drake. Philip Sidney one of his gentlemen who must hale and draw with the mariners! But Philip Sidney was Master of the Ordnance — C.I.G.S. no less and recently appointed. How could he be bidden to hale and draw with the mariners? He might propose to come as a volunteer, but he was a paragon, a nonpareil. No doubt Drake saw that ugly scene at Port Saint Julian renewing the vividness of its colours. The presence of the Master of the Ordnance on board the Bonaventure would be a perpetual challenge to Drake’s authority. The Queen knew nothing of her favourite’s escapade. She would be in a raging fury when she did. She would never believe but that Drake was in a conspiracy to steal him away. She might forbid the expedition altogether, and Drake might have his only look on Lond
on for many a long year from a window in the Tower. He acted quickly. A messenger was despatched that same night to Burghley and to Walsingham. Sidney was married to Walsingham’s daughter Frances and, as that statesman wrote to Leicester, his “chief worldly comfort.”
There is little doubt that Sidney had posted from London under a sense of grievance. He had been chosen to go with Leicester to the Netherlands and have Flushing under his command. But the Queen had changed her mind. He was not to go. He was to dance attendance in the silken fetters of the Court; and burning with resentment, he had packed his saddle-bags and ridden off to Plymouth. Leicester was his uncle, and Leicester was one of the Adventurers who had put money into the expedition. He had little doubt that he would be welcome to Drake and share with him the glory and romance of this great adventure.
He was quickly undeceived. The moment the Queen heard of his flight, she despatched an express messenger with three letters, one for Sidney commanding him to return, one for Drake forbidding him to sail with Sidney, and one for the Mayor of Plymouth ordering him to arrest the flower of chivalry if he did not instantly obey her. Drake drew a breath of relief when his unwanted guest was safely on the Barbican. He tumbled his stores in a most unseamanlike disorder on to his ships, took his water-casks half-filled, and on September 14th pushed out with a fair wind for Ushant.
The fair wind, however, did not hold. Drake’s fleet drifted across the Bay, picking up a cargo of salt fish from a Spanish ship on the way, and falling in off Cape Finisterre with a flotilla of French rovers who had just burnt Vianna and were willing to help Drake to treat Vigo to the same fate. On September 27th he anchored off the islands of Bayona on the northern edge of Vigo Bay. He filled his pinnaces with soldiers, and taking their commander, Carleill, in his own galley, led them towards the town of Bayona. On the way he was met by an English merchant who, at the instance of Don Pedro Romero, the Governor of the town, had come out in his boat to discover what was the intent and character of this great swoop of unknown ships. The merchant was sent back with Captain John Sampson, one of the Corporals of the Field. Captain Sampson, on reaching the Governor’s residence, wanted two plain answers to two plain questions. First, were England and Spain at war, or were they not? Secondly, if they were not, why had English ships been arrested? It is believed that the questions lost nothing of their acerbity by the manner of their presentation, and Don Pedro was hard put to it to answer them. The arrival of so warlike a fleet had spread a panic along the coast, before the name of Drake was linked with it; and indeed, as Carleill wrote to his father-in-law, “it was a great matter and a royal sight to see them.” Don Pedro Romero returned conciliatory answers. He knew nothing of any war and it lay not in him to make any, “he being so mean a subject as he was.” As for the ships which had been stayed, it was the King’s pleasure, but without any intent to harm any man. Moreover, a week ago all had been released, and those that stayed now stayed at their own good pleasure and for their profit. English merchants who trafficked in those waters were sent out to Drake to convince him, but he was not satisfied and landed a force upon an island close to the town. The Governor was tactful. He offered such honest courtesies as one Captain might offer to another, and sent to the soldiers who were making themselves comfortable for the night, bread, wine, oil, grapes, marmalade and such like refreshments.
The weather, however, had been falling for some days, and as the night shut down the outlook became so bad that the soldiers were all fetched on board in a hurry. And they were not too soon. For at midnight a gale broke which scattered the ships and lasted for three days. The pinnace Speedwell was driven right back to England. When the gale abated, Carleill in the Tiger and three other of the smaller ships were sent up the river to Vigo. He found the inhabitants taking to the hills. Boats and caravels were being loaded with household furniture, money, many trumpery things of no value, and rowed away to the upper waters of the Vigo River. Carleill rounded them up and found that one contained the sacred vessels of the Church of Vigo, and amongst them a great cross of silver of “fair embossed work and double gilt all over” which, according to all reports, must have cost a mint of money. Property to the value of thirty thousand ducats was gathered in by Carleill. On the next day, the anchorage at the Bayona islands being poor, Drake led his great fleet to a better harbour on the river above Vigo town. He had need of a quiet anchorage in which properly to distribute the stores thrust anyhow on board the nearest ships at Plymouth; and above all other needs stood the need of filling his water-barrels. For those small crowded ships water to drink was the prime necessity. On the voyage of circumnavigation nothing caused so much hindrance or distress as the want of water. At Vigo, Drake could replenish to the brim the half-filled casks he had carried away in his haste to put to sea.
On the other side the Governor of the province of Galicia got busy, and he arrived within sight of Drake’s fleet with a force estimated at two thousand infantry and three hundred horse. There he halted and sent an officer with a flag of truce on board the Bonaventure to know what Drake wanted. Drake demanded an interview on the water, with hostages exchanged to make sure that there was no trickery. The Vice-Admiral’s pinnace was sent for the Governor, Drake put off in his galley, and on the bosom of Vigo Harbour the dignitary and the sailor met. Drake had learnt that there were still English sailors imprisoned on shore and English ships still detained. He secured their release, the right to fill his water-barrels and to buy what provisions he needed. In return he gave back the property seized and the great silver-gilt cross. For eight days thereafter Drake remained unmolested, his pinnaces plying between his ships and the shore. He filled his water-barrels, he stocked his ships with green vegetables, he received the English merchants and guaranteed them a safe departure should they wish to collect their debts and go. For eight days he was the acknowledged master of Galicia. Philip had no more than two squadrons of fighting ships at the time, and they were cruising within the Straits of Gibraltar under Giannandrea Doria on the look-out for the English merchant fleet from the Levant; by which they were ignominiously defeated off the island of Pantalarea in the following year. Philip raged in the Escorial. It was the daring of the exploit rather than any damage done which scandalized him. But he was helpless. His council sat for three days distracted between the enormity of the insult and an inability to believe that it could possibly have been inflicted. It blustered, it frothed, but it could not challenge the man sitting snugly in Vigo Harbour. The Queen of England only existed through the long-suffering of Philip, didn’t she? Well then! Santa Cruz took a longer and a wider view. A fleet so large, so well-appointed — for news had been sent that the materials for fortifications on land were carried in Drake’s ships — had another object than the release of the merchant ships in Vigo. It was surely bound for the West Indies and for more than a swift raid upon Philip’s possessions there. And whilst these debates were continued, Drake disappeared. His stores were distributed, his water-casks filled. On October 11th the wind blew from the north-north-west and he led his fleet down the river and vanished over the rim of the sea.
He was next seen at Las Palmas, where he attempted to land, with the intention of “taking his pleasure at that place” and furnishing his ships with “such several good things as it affordeth abundantly.” The shore batteries opened fire upon him with round shot which here and there found their mark, but what deterred him was the violence of the surf. There was no good landing-ground, and too many of his boats and pinnaces would be upset in the attempt. He held on to Gomera, and after putting a thousand men on shore for an afternoon, sailed at night for the Cape Verde Islands and the coast of Barbary. It has been said that his aim was to intercept here the Spanish gold fleet, and that he missed it by twelve hours. But it is difficult to believe. He would hardly have stayed so long at Vigo and he certainly would not have tarried at the Canaries if he had suspected that that ripe fruit had been so near to his mouth. He was making his voyage without haste, like a man sure that his objec
t could not escape him. He followed the usual practice of ships in those waters of putting into Capo Blanco to buy fish and then, running on to the Cape Verde Islands, he brought his fleet to anchor in the Bay of Santiago on the evening of November 16th.
The town of Santiago lies in a deep cutting between high cliffs. The cutting starts in the hills at the back of the town as a narrow gully and winds like a great serpent down to the sea, widening as it winds. Late upon the night of his arrival, Carleill, with a thousand soldiers, was landed on a promontory some miles to the east of the town. This force broken into small companies marched up into a difficult country of hills and reached a plateau at a point two miles from the town, whilst it was yet dark. Here Carleill halted and rested his troops until the day began to dawn. Then, forming them in three divisions, he advanced upon the flank of the town.
The high walls of the valley were crowned with strong forts, and Carleill expected a strong resistance. But he advanced in silence. Not a salvo checked him, not a sentry challenged him. The forts were empty. Still more strange, the guns were loaded. From the edge of the steep cliff, Carleill looked down into the town. It lay with its open marketplace, its great church, its fine white stone houses, shadowless and clear in the pure light of the morning; and not a figure moved in the streets or at any window. Carleill feared an ambuscade and sent Captain Barton and Captain Sampson, each with thirty men, by different paths to make a reconnaissance. They were visible from the top of the cliff as they passed along the streets; and no one came out from any house to greet or oppose them. Finally, Carleill sent forward the great ensign “which had nothing in it but the plain English Cross,” and this too was neither questioned nor hailed. When he had quartered the town and found it empty as the forts upon the cliffs, Carleill hoisted the great flag of St. George where it blew out visible to all the fleet; and it being November 17th, the birthday of the Queen, he fired a salute from all the guns in the deserted city. The fleet responded with a roar of its artillery, and the thunder of the tribute to its mistress broke against the hills and rolled back again to the sea. But nothing else that was inspiring or profitable came of this attack, if attack it can be called, on Santiago.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 881