Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  “I have been aboard of every ship that goeth out with me, and in every place where any may creep, and I do thank God that they be in the estate they be in; and there is never a one of them that knows what a leak means....There is none that goeth out now but I durst go to the Rio de la Plata in her.”

  Apart from the seaworthiness of the ships, mobilization was now a swift and orderly procedure. It was known, of course, that Parma had assembled a great number of flat-bottomed boats in which to ferry across his soldiers to Harwich, or some convenient port; and if there was fear in England at all, it was of those Veterans, who had learned their trade on the battlefields of the Netherlands and compared with whom the English troops, train-bands and feudal levies were little better than amateurs. Sir Henry Palmer, however, at the head of a compact squadron of nine small ships, kept watch and guard in the Narrow Seas, and was thought a sufficient protection. In the west lay Drake with his thirteen ships — a problem for Elizabeth almost as great as he was for Philip. How was he to be used? Drake himself had never a doubt how best he could be used, but for the moment he was the bad boy in the corner. And he was left there until the autumn, partly because it was known that the corner was just at that angle in the west which made him a constant and disturbing threat to Philip in Spain.

  This state of affairs suffered a sea-change at the end of September. Santa Cruz, after chasing the wraith of Drake round the Azores and losing ships to no purpose in the chase, reappeared battered and tempest-worn off Cape St. Vincent. At Lisbon he made his report to King Philip. Nothing was ready. His galleons needed a great deal of refitting before they could go to sea again. The squadron of Biscay was still at San Lucar, whither it had gone to pick up its stores. The Enterprise of England must be deferred.

  The ear of the King, however, was held at that moment by Alonzo de Leyva, an impetuous soldier with little knowledge of the sea. Santa Cruz was ordered sharply not to make unnecessary difficulties and to get to sea as quickly as energy and goodwill could manage it. Elizabeth countered by once more bringing Don Antonio out of his retirement. The revival of Don Antonio was not to interfere with the negotiations for an armistice with Parma. A private venture was to be organized by Drake and his friends with the support of the Queen behind the scenes. Reports from the coast of Portugal spoke of the discontent prevailing there. Lisbon was to be taken, Don Antonio to be enthroned, and Drake was to raid the West Indies again to pay for it all. The scheme, though approved by Leicester and Sir Walter Raleigh, was still no more than a skeleton when it became known that the Armada was definitely to sail, ready or unready, before the end of December; and at some date not exactly known in the month of November the Queen gave the order for the mobilization of the fleet. On December 21st, Charles, Lord Howard of Effingham, whose father had been Lord High Admiral before him, was assigned, made, constituted, ordained and deputed to be “our Lieutenant-General, Commander-in-Chief and Governor of our whole fleet and army at sea now fitted forth against the Spaniards and their allies.” The next day Howard went on board the Bear and wrote to Burghley that he had that day begun to take in the four weeks’ victuals which the ships were allowed. The weather had been so tempestuous that no lighters could lie alongside, but “in two or three days all things will be in readiness.” He was delighted with the look of his crew. “Here is a very sufficient and able company of sailors as ever were seen,” but since they were short of clothes — there were no uniforms in those days — he asked that they should be paid a month’s wages in advance. It is well to emphasize Howard’s contentment, so much blame has been spilt over Queen Elizabeth on the ground of her parsimony and delays. Between some date in November and December 21st the fleet, which had not been on a war footing before, had been so completely mobilized that there was nothing left to get on board but the victuals. As the victuals were only supplied for a period of four weeks, they were the last stores to be hoisted in, and but for the bad weather that work would already have been done before Howard took up his Commission. A comparison between this quick mobilization and the tardy preparations at Lisbon becomes a high tribute to the efficiency of the Queen’s dockyards and the excellence of the Naval Administration.

  Let us see what the ships were on that date. Sixteen were stationed at Queenborough, with the Bear flying the Lord Admiral’s pennant. Three of them, the Bear, the Triumph and Elizabeth Jonas, carried crews of five hundred men. The Victory and the Ark Raleigh carried four hundred each. The Mary Rose, Lion, Elizabeth Bonaventure, Vanguard, Dreadnought and Rainbow were complete with two hundred and fifty men apiece. All these were great ships carrying cannon, culverins, demi-culverins, long eighteen-pounders, probably the most useful guns in the fleet, and small quick-firing batteries of minions and sakers. Besides these eleven, the Foresight, commanded by Frobisher, had a crew of one hundred and sixty, whilst the Merlin, Sun, Brigandine and George needed no more than thirty men each.

  Patrolling the Narrow Seas under Sir Henry Palmer, there were nine warships, of which two, the Charles and the Moon, were pinnaces. The other seven, the Antelope, Swallow, Bull, Tiger, Tramontana, Scout and Achates, carried crews varying in number from a hundred and sixty to sixty.

  But, in addition, there were lying at Portsmouth the Hope, the Nonpareil, the Advice, and at Queenborough, but set apart from Lord Howard’s fleet, the Revenge, Swiftsure and Aid. These six ships, carrying a thousand and eighty-five men between them, were to proceed to Plymouth with the pinnace Makeshift and become the spear-head of a second fleet under Drake. Drake was to have, besides, six London galleons, the Edward Bonaventure, Roebuck, Hopewell, Galleon Fenner, Golden Noble and the Merchant Royal, and experience had shown that the London ships were in fighting capacity and equipment on a par with the great ships of the Royal Navy. Behind these, in a second line, were the Griffin, Minion, Thomas, Bark Talbot, Spark, Hope, Bark Bond, Bark Bonner, Elizabeth Founes, Unity, Elizabeth Drake and Bark Hawkins. As their names show, these barks and frigates were the property of private owners which had been lent or requisitioned for the Queen’s service. Five hulks to carry his surplus stores brought Drake’s independent command up to thirty sail, with a total paysheet of two thousand nine hundred men.

  And what was he to do with them; Set Don Antonio on his throne? That unfortunate gentleman was once more moved to the back row. It began to look as if the pas seul were never to be executed by him. Drake was given, two days after Lord Howard had been appointed Commander-in-Chief, a Commission upon much the same lines as the last one. He was to impeach the junction of Philip’s fleets and distress him in his havens. There was no ambiguity about his authority this time. If the Armada had sailed when he reached the coast, he was to send a swift vessel home with the news and delay it by any possible action which would not endanger his fleet. Drake at once sent off the Makeshift pinnace to spy out the Spanish coast, and got to work “by torch and cresset” at night, as well as by day, to fit out his ships. He had been given unusual powers to detain what ships he needed, if they carried contraband for the enemy; and on January 20th, 1588, he did so detain five hulks belonging to the King of Sweden which were carrying stores from Lisbon for Parma’s men. Meanwhile the Queen’s ships from the Chatham yard and Portsmouth had not arrived at Plymouth, and, before they did arrive, once more the kaleidoscope was shaken and visions of peace took shape distinctly enough to half-persuade the Court. Sir Edward Stafford, Elizabeth’s Ambassador in Paris, sent home a despatch that disease and desertion had between them so ravaged the Armada that the Enterprise of England was to be abandoned. Drake had quite other news from the Swedish ships, but he could make no headway against the Spanish party. And even Drake could not pretend that Philip’s orders to sail before the end of January had any likelihood of fulfilment.

  Within a fortnight of the end of the mobilization, half the crews of the ships were ordered their discharge, and by January 18th they were paid off. This measure, too, has formed the text of how many sermons on Elizabeth’s meanness and instability. All of them are unjus
t. The letters of the Lord Admiral to Burghley upon the subject of this order are in themselves enough to give her detractors pause. He does not accept Stafford’s statement. He thinks that it may be a device of the King of Spain to make the English careless. “But if it is true, it is the preparation which Her Majesty has made, that is the cause.” He wishes that Her Majesty had spent a thousand crowns to get herself good intelligence. But there is nothing of alarm, nothing even of surprise. He asks for good notice when the time comes to furnish the fleet again with men as they were— “I do not look to see it ever bettered” — and he suggests that if three or four ships are added to Sir Henry Palmer’s squadron they will be sufficient to stop any attempt that the Duke of Parma might make, independently of Philip, upon Scotland. For the rest, it grieves him to see Her Majesty “at more charges than is needful.”

  It was not indeed so much a question of expense as of the well-being of the men. A ship of a thousand tons, like the Bear or the Triumph, carried a full complement of five hundred men. Even granting that the thousand tons of those days might be reckoned at twelve or thirteen hundred, she would still be heavily overcrowded. Add the absence of sanitary appliances or any form of cold storage or canned vegetables and fruit, and the necessity of reducing the number of the crew at the first possible moment is obvious. It was bad enough when the ship was out on the high sea and a steady wind was blowing through the portholes. Even with all the care Drake took to set his men on shore and sweeten his vessels, disease took a heavy toll of his men. Moreover, beer, which formed a recognized ration in the feeding of a man-of-war’s crew, had a way of going sour. The remedy was to rebrew it, but it seldom got a second brewage, and was drunk sour. Assume, then, that the ships were not upon the high seas, but stretched out in a line along a sheltered anchorage like Gillingham Reach, without leave given or fresh food taken on board until the four weeks were up, there could be but one result. The food rotted and the men rotted with it.

  But though the crews of the ships were halved, the ships themselves were kept on a war footing. Drake was ordered to let the King of Sweden’s hulks go, but to keep the rest of his squadron together. The six Navy ships joined him early in February, and again, by day and by night, he docked and tallowed them and got them ready for the fight. It was whilst he was thus engaged that news came that Santa Cruz, worn out with overwork and disheartened by his long and useless cruise to the Azores, had died at Lisbon in the castle of St. Julian. Philip had had two great Admirals, Pero Menendez, who invented the Indian Guard and once planned to make a base on the Scilly Isles, as Drake had done at Cape St. Vincent; and next old Santa Cruz who had saved the day at Lepanto.

  “Flavit Deus et dissipati sunt.” Thus ran the legend on the medal struck to commemorate the defeat of the Armada. “God sent a wind and they are scattered.” The words are true, but only literally true. No greater error could be made than to read into them an explanation. The wind blew and the ships were scattered, but they had been defeated first. And they were defeated by English seamanship. This incontestable fact makes it interesting, if idle, to speculate how the Grand Fleet, as in its own country the Armada was called, would have fared if either Menendez or Santa Cruz had lived to command it. Would it have passed up the Solent, left a rearguard to hold the Needles passage, flung its nineteen thousand trained soldiers on shore at Southampton, and then, with the main body of its ships, made a screen from the Nab towards the French coast against the English ships, whilst Parma sent his veterans across in his flat-bottomed boats? Some such stroke and the Catholic rebels might have risen, the Fifth Column of those days, and England have been put to a harder ordeal than she suffered. That she would have won is not to be doubted. The spirit of victory was a steady flame in every town and village, every homestead, every heart. But the battle would have been more arduous than it was. As it happened, a man quite ignorant of the sea led the Grand Fleet to Calais sands and threw away the only chance of invading England. It cannot recur, so long as England retains her courage and her competence.

  For whilst the defeat of Spain established in England its most invaluable claims — freedom of creed, freedom of trade, freedom to occupy unoccupied lands beyond the seas and to impart to them her just and honourable code — the long process of defeating Spain brought with it the knowledge how to keep those rights. Naval strategy, as we understand it now, had its beginnings during these pregnant years. Its foundations were well and truly laid by one man, Sir Francis Drake, in these early winter months of 1588 eating his heart out in idleness at Plymouth. Naval strategy, in times of peace, seeks to secure positions which will be an advantage in times of war. It has for its end, as that great authority Captain Mahon wrote, to found, support and increase the sea-power of the country. Drake understood it at Cartagena. He proved it at Cape St. Vincent. Time and again, he and Tom Fenner, his Captain, wrote home, stressing the advantage of that station and imploring reinforcements that they might keep it. They were before their time, that is all. Cape St. Vincent was the forerunner of all the posts from Gibraltar to Shanghai which make the oceans a pathway for British ships. Of naval strategy in war, the first principle is to seek out the enemy’s fleet at the first moment on his own coasts and destroy it. It was the principle which Nelson established in the eighteenth century, but Drake asserted it in this year of 1588.

  Let us see! Through the month of January, Lord Howard of Effingham lay off Queenborough, without orders and without information. Towards the end of the month, whilst his pride in his ships and the crews which had manned them was as high as ever, he was so sick of heart at his idleness that he asked for himself and his brother-in-law, Henry Seymour, and Lord Sheffield, Captains respectively of the Triumph and the Victory, that they should be relieved of their command. At their moorings they would be a jest to many. With their forces diminished they were as much good for service as the hoys which lay at Lion Quay below London Bridge. Hawkins emphasized Howard’s prayer in a letter which might have been written a few months ago:

  “If we stand at this point in a mammering and at a stay, we consume and our Commonwealth doth utterly decay....We have to choose either a dishonourable and uncertain peace, or to put on virtuous and valiant minds, to make a way through with such a settled war as may bring forth and command a quiet peace.”

  Did anybody but the Queen, and perhaps Burghley, believe that any good could come out of negotiations with Parma? On February 14th, Howard was writing to Walsingham: “I hear for certain that the Duke of Parma hath now gotten a great number of mariners together and his ships full-rigged and victuals and all in, so it is like the next wind that is fit for them they will attempt something.”

  His protests and those of his colleagues had not been spoken to ears altogether deaf. Lord Howard was not relieved, nor were his friends, but a proposal which he had made on January 24th was adopted. The squadron of Sir Henry Palmer patrolling the Narrow Seas was strengthened and Lord Howard was put in charge of it. His duty was to escort the Peace Commissioners to Flushing, to keep an eye on the Duke of Parma’s collection of transport boats and hoys at Dunkirk, and by a naval demonstration of England’s sea-power to persuade him to the genuine acceptance of a treaty.

  At noon, accordingly, on February 21st, Howard, flying his pennon on the Ark — a fine ship which Sir Walter Raleigh had built and sold to the Queen — led out the Elizabeth Bonaventure, the Golden Lion, the Vanguard, the Mary Rose, the Dreadnought, the Swallow, the Foresight and Howard’s own galleon the White Lion. His enthusiasm and confidence returned with the wind in the sails and the open sea. He wrote lyrically home to Burghley: “I protest before God and as my soul shall answer for it, that I think there were never in any place in the world worthier ships than these, for so many. And as few as we are, if the King of Spain’s forces be not hundred, we will make good sport with them.” But he is certain that the Armada is coming. For he had fallen in with two French ships from Spain which reported wonders of the Spanish army and that upon pain of death every man must be r
eady to sail by March 25th. Four other great ships had been promised to him, and if he could only have them in time, he would make the King of Spain wish his galleys at home again. Sir William Winter, who commanded the Vanguard, wrote in the same strain to the Officers of the Queen’s Majesty’s Admiralty: “Our ships doth show themselves like gallants here. I assure you it will do a man’s heart good to behold them; and would to God the Prince of Parma were upon the seas with all his forces and we in view of them; then I doubt not but that you should hear that we would make his enterprise very unpleasant to him.” Did Winter feel a twinge of the gout as he wrote these lines “in the Downs, the wind at East by North”? For he adds with a sudden lapse into sorrow that Parma is going to keep him from the baths of Bath, where he had meant to seek his health at the beginning of May.

  At the end of February the Peace Commission passed over to the Netherlands and began its vain negotiations. But report after report was sent on to London, showing that they were the merest screen for hiding Philip’s preparations. Thomas Fenner, for instance, now Captain of the Nonpareil, returned to Drake at Plymouth from a cruise along the French coast, and had got from a Portuguese living at Nantes an exaggerated account of the number of ships and soldiers and the amount of provisions assembled at Lisbon for the Enterprise. Of more value was the statement he quoted of Captain Coxe, who had taken a pinnace to the coast of Spain and sighted there a great number of flyboats. For Drake sent forward his explanation to Walsingham with Fenner’s letter. The flyboats were Parma’s, and they carried not merely provisions to Lisbon but the Dunkirk pilots who were to guide the Armada up the English Channel.