An inconclusive, unsatisfactory battle. Towards the end Howard undoubtedly had the advantage, and if only he had been able to command sufficient powder and shot he might then and there have shattered the Armada. But the Armada went on, a fleet in being. New tactics were being used by the English, and they did not know enough of them to use them to their full value. To stand off and win by so manœuvring that the whole weight of the broadside could be thrown again and again at the enemy’s ships: that was the new theory; but in practice it involved such an expenditure of powder and shot as the purveyor of the Queen’s Navy had never foreseen, and would only have foreseen with horror at the cost. Howard, in his Relation, generally and probably with justice attributed to him, after a handsome reference to himself, dwells upon this point. “The fight was very nobly continued from morning until evening, the Lord Admiral being always in the hottest of the encounter, and it may well be said that for the time, there was never seen a more terrible value of great shot, nor more hot fight than this was; for although the musketeers and arquebusiers of crock were then infinite, yet could they not be discerned nor heard, for that the great ordnance came so thick that a man would have judged it to have been a hot skirmish of small shot, being all the fight long within half musket shot of the enemy.”
Thus, then, ended Tuesday, the 23rd of July, and the fourth day of the Armada battle; and there are two matters in connection with it which require some reflection.
The first is more particular to the place of Drake in the country’s history than to this engagement. Never once does Howard in his account of it mention his Vice-Admiral. That it was he who, by weathering the seaward wing of the Spaniards at a critical moment, altered the complexion of the engagement, there is not a word of acknowledgment. It was he, but the fact has to be dug out of the various Relations, Spanish as well as English. Nor did Howard mention him again with praise — not even in his account of the battle of Gravelines. It is impossible not to wonder whether that extinguished lantern on the poop of the Revenge did, after all, pass without the silent censure of the Lord High Admiral; or whether some sharp jealousy made his pen niggardly of praise.
The other surprising circumstance is that with ah this smoke of war staining the seas, all this swift artillery, men half-naked sweating at their guns and the enemy less than a pistol shot away, not a ship was sunk. The San Martin raked by the broadsides of the Ark Royal and the Revenge, Frobisher’s Triumph and his merchantmen for an hour and a half bearing the swiftly moving batteries of the galleasses, Recalde’s San Juan exposed alone to the fire of Drake’s squadron — all of them remained afloat. Two of them could be repaired and the next day fight again. There were, of course, no shells to explode within the very vitals of a ship. A round shot might pass through the planks of both sides, and as long as it passed through above the water-line the holes could be plugged. Moreover, the round shot as often as not did not fit the cannon, it wobbled before it left the cannon’s mouth, it was deflected, and the bore of the cannon was smooth. Eight hundred yards a culverin was supposed to carry, but at eight hundred yards it was unlikely to hit its object, and if it did, it had so little velocity in its flight and such small striking power behind it, that it could be dodged before it struck. It was very difficult in 1588 to sink a battleship. Taking all in all, it was even more difficult than it is today.
Wednesday, July 24th, began with a skirmish between a few ships of the English van and the Spanish rearguard under Recalde. The four galleasses were engaged and the Spanish claimed to have shot away the mainyard of the Admiral’s ship and damaged his rigging. The English are silent about this affair, so that it is impossible to state which of the Admirals suffered this hurt. Indeed, but for the Spanish admission that the chief ship of the hulks was riddled with shot and had seventy men killed and as many wounded, one would not be sure that a musket had been let off on that day. Certainly none was afterwards. There was little or no wind. Howard, moreover, was engaged in refurnishing himself from the shore with powder and shot and reorganizing his fleet. By the energies of the Mayor of Weymouth he secured the ammunition of the San Salvador and of Nuestra Señora del Rosario now in Dartmouth Harbour. Lord Sussex at Portsmouth stripped himself of his last quintal of powder and must needs send to the Tower for the small portion which still remained there. Sir George Carey, Governor of the Isle of Wight, sent him four ships and a couple of pinnaces in reply to the appeal which Howard had made. One of these pinnaces, indeed, manned with a hundred sailors, Howard sent back. He had men enough now and of little ships too many. For during the last two days from Dartmouth, from Lyme, from Bridport and Weymouth and Poole the little ships had been tumbling out to join in the great battle to decide whether England would still be English. They were captained by young gentlemen glowing with adoration of the Queen, by old sailors who had sons labouring in the Spanish galleys, by Protestants who abominated the Pope, by country men with the smell of their land in their nostrils. Whoever owned or could buy or borrow a little craft with a little gun, and could scrape together a handful of powder and shot, was off to sink the Armada. And behind all the motives of which they were conscious there was one which welded them together like a flame, the need to retain their Englishry, to continue to be what God and their soil and their independence of mind and their love of adventure had made them. They were going to be partakers in a victory or to win an honourable death, every one of them, but beyond crowding in upon Howard’s fleet they were for the most part not very clear how they were going to set about it. Their undisciplined ardour, indeed, made them an embarrassing addition to Howard’s muster and no doubt speeded up the remodelling of the battle plan, which was the invaluable work done by the war-council on that day.
It was imperative that the tactical plot should be changed. For four days the Spaniards had been sailing up the Channel with the English on their heels, and though they had lost a couple of big ships, a good many men, and had suffered other injuries to hulls and rigging, they were still as an engine of war no less formidable at St. Alban’s Head than they had been off the Dodman Rock. The felicissima Armada was still the felicissima Armada. It had indeed, on the day before, turned and split the English line. It had reduced an attack in full strength to a series of isolated and indecisive engagements. The English Admirals had been surprised by the skill of the Spanish Commanders, and they were able enough and modest enough to snatch a leaf out of the Spanish book.
Howard had now more than a hundred ships under his command. Fourteen had joined him on this day alone. The Spanish plan of squadrons was adopted, and the fleet was divided into four of them. Frobisher, who had earned promotion by his gallant defence against the galleasses, was given the command of one; and, as before, he was stationed on the port wing. On his right hand, Sir John Hawkins in the Victory commanded the second. The Lord Admiral led the strongest squadron next; and the seaward wing was in the charge of the Vice-Admiral, Sir Francis Drake.
With the new formation, a new method of attack. Six of the merchant ships from each squadron were to attack simultaneously during the night— “should set upon the Spanish fleet in sundry places at one instant in the night time, to keep the enemy waking,” as Howard described the plan. But the wind fell away altogether with the evening, and once more the two fleets lay idle, the Armada a few miles south of the Isle of Wight — six leagues is the figure given, but as the battle which took place on the following morning was clearly visible from the island, that figure is an exaggeration — and the English fleet astern. Medina-Sidonia had now reached the spot where he expected an answer from the Duke of Parma to the information of his whereabouts, which he had sent by his flag-bearer Juan Gil on July 22nd. He was content, therefore, to stay where he was.
But it was not to be allowed. To the English his position had never been more dangerous. Although he had not taken the narrow Needles passage into the Solent, he could round the island at St. Helen’s, or attack Portsmouth, or fly on to a junction with Parma at Dover. The general belief amongst b
oth the statesmen and the sailors of England was that he would seek to occupy the Island as a prelude to the invasion of England. They had no knowledge of Philip’s secret instructions to Medina-Sidonia to halt nowhere until he had joined forces with the Duke of Parma, and the capture of the Island seemed the first step which a force engaged upon the Enterprise of England would naturally take.
During the still night no attack was possible, but when the morning of July 25th broke, two big galleons, the Santa Ana, Recalde’s wounded flagship, and the San Luis, a warship of Lisbon, were lying becalmed astern of the Armada and ahead of Hawkins’s squadron. There was only one way of coming to grips with them. Hawkins ordered out the long-boats of his leading ships and had them towed into close range; and so at five o’clock began a battle which was the first phase of the defeat of the Armada. “Deus flavit,” said the legend on the Armada medal. It is an ironic commentary on the legend that not a flaw of wind blurred on that morning the shining mirror of the sea.
Sir George Carey saw the battle from the Island, so close was it fought to the cliffs of Dunnose. It continued, he wrote to the Earl of Sussex, “from five of the clock until ten with so great expense of powder and bullet that during the said time the shot continued so thick together that it might rather have been judged a skirmish with small shot on land than a fight with great shot on sea.”
It was a tempting but a dangerous move which Hawkins made. For Medina-Sidonia had his four big-oared galleasses still in fighting trim. He sent three of them with Alonzo de Leyva’s great Levanter Rata to the rescue. Hawkins, however, did not as yet get into a position where he could use his broadside. His long-boats were driven off by musket fire. Howard, whose squadron was next to that of Hawkins, now brought his own Ark Royal and Lord Thomas Howard’s Golden Lion by means of his long-boats into the engagement, and between them they did some excellent shooting. A shot from the Ark Royal carried away the lantern of one of the galleasses — it came bobbing by Howard’s ship. Another shot carried away the nose of the second galleasse; and the third drifted away from the bombardment with a heavy list. “After which time,” said Howard with very justifiable pride, “the galleasses were never seen in fight any more, so bad was their entertainment in this encounter.” As for the Santa Ana, from which ship Recalde, two days before, had removed his flag, she had so much additional damage done to her battered sides that she fell away from the Armada altogether and drifted ashore the next day, a total wreck, in the bay of Havre. The galleasses, indeed, were only saved from complete destruction by the rising of the wind, which enabled Medina-Sidonia in the San Martin and the fourth galleasse to draw away. The English squadrons lay a little inshore of the Spaniards, and the wind for the moment blew straight from the south. The San Martin and the fourth galleasse, being in the Spanish van, were able to pass through the rearguard and, having now the weather-gauge, to face the attack. The battered galleasses under the cover of this reinforcement drew away. But Medina-Sidonia’s vanguard did not, as he expected, conform to his movement, and he found himself in considerable danger. Luckily for him, the Ark Royal and the Golden Lion had in their turn suffered some mauling; for they appear no more in the engagement. It was Frobisher’s squadron on the left of Howard which took up the attack. A current had carried the cluster of ships shorewards, so that Frobisher was quite close to the San Martin, and the wind was so light that he was able to open his lower ports and fire his lower tier of guns. He did so much damage to the enemy’s flagship, killing her soldiers and bringing down her mizzen-yard, that it was only a second change of wind which saved her. It shifted into the southwest, and ships of the Spanish rearguard found it possible to butt in between Frobisher’s squadron and the flagship. This shift of wind threatened to change the fortunes of the day. For it put Frobisher’s squadron to leeward, Frobisher’s own flagship, the Triumph, being on the squadron’s seaward edge.
Whether or no the Spanish Admiral knowingly profited by the English methods, he used them. He concentrated his attack upon the Triumph and cut it off whilst the rest of the English fleet went about and sailed close-hauled to recover the weather-gauge. Frobisher’s rudder was injured and she would not steer, she was badly damaged by shot, and she fired three guns and lowered her ensign as signals of her distress. Eleven launches were sent hurriedly to tow her off, and the Bear and the Elizabeth Jonas of Howard’s squadron bore away to her relief. But Recalde with the San Juan de Sicilia, the Gran-Grin and the squadron of Castille were swinging down on a reach between the reinforcement and the Triumph. It looked as if Frobisher and his great ship were doomed. But at this moment, Medina-Sidonia declared ruefully, the wind freshened in favour of the enemy’s Admiral. In other words, it shifted a little to the south. Frobisher had managed to repair his steering gear. He cast off the launches and slipped away on a reach to the west and beat up to his own fleet. Meanwhile, to seaward the squadrons of Hawkins and Drake were claiming Medina-Sidonia’s attention. Using every flaw and shift of the light wind, they worked round the weathermost ships of the Spanish wing, and with the Mary Rose under Fenton’s command and the Nonpareil under Thomas Fenner’s leading, fell upon the San Mateo. The San Mateo was driven in amongst the leeward galleons, causing a confusion in their ranks, and a general attack was begun. A decisive victory seemed at last within the grasp of the English fleet. It was to windward, the Spanish galleons were being huddled and driven together with the sandbanks of the Owers not so far away under their lee. Frobisher’s Triumph and Howard’s Ark Royal were alike out of danger; and suddenly, as if by mutual consent, the battle came to an end.
It was ten o’clock in the morning, the sea calm, the wind light, yet not so light that ships could not manœuvre. The Mary Rose and the Nonpareil, for instance, having weathered the seaward Spanish wing, had lowered their topsails and were standing boldly in upon the crowded enemy. Yet the battle ceased. The English ships were called off, the Spaniards reformed and sailed on unmolested towards the Straits of Dover.
There have been many conjectures to explain the abrupt cessation of this battle. The real explanation is to be found in that letter of Sir George Carey to Sussex from which a quotation has been already made. “It might rather have been judged a skirmish with small shot on land than a fight with great shot on sea.” Both sides at the end of the five hours were too short of ammunition to continue. All that Howard had been able to collect from the San Salvador and Nuestra Señora del Rosario, all that Carey had been able to send him, had been blazed away. The Duke of Medina-Sidonia was not in much better case. He sent the pilot Domingo Ochoa in a pinnace the next day to the Duke of Parma to obtain from him “shot of four, six and ten lbs. because much of his munition had been wasted in the several fights.”
But though the battle was broken off, the advantage was with the English. Medina-Sidonia himself admits it in his Relation to King Philip. “The Duke seeing that in the proposed assault the advantage was no longer with us and that we were now near to the Isle of Wight, discharged a piece and proceeded on his course, the rest of the Armada following in very good order, the enemy remaining a long way astern.” Indeed, had Howard been sufficiently provided with powder and shot, the great decision which was reached at Gravelines might have been obtained that day. Medina-Sidonia had the cliffs of Shanklin and the sandbanks of the Owers under his lee. He was being crowded towards them by the squadrons of Hawkins and Drake. It was very doubtful if he could have escaped. As things were, he had lost three of his four galleasses and the Santa Ana from his fighting strength. As Howard wrote four days later to Walsingham, “Their force is wonderful great and strong; and yet we pluck their feathers by little and by little;” the occupation of the Isle of Wight was prevented; Portsmouth was saved from an attack; and ahead in the Narrow Seas Seymour was awaiting them. As the war rolled eastwards, English heads slept more easily on their pillows. But there were still Parma and his soldiers at Dunkirk. There was still the Thames open to invasion. The Armada was still a fleet of mighty ships and great strength; and on
land there were still the delays, the confusion of orders, the shortage of victuals and ammunition, which Howard and his Admirals had been forced to contend with at sea.
CHAPTER XX
THE ISSUE SLAVERY OR FREEDOM. THE FIRE SHIPS AT CALAIS. THE BATTLE OF GRAVELINES. A CHANGE OF WIND SAVES THE ARMADA FROM COMPLETE DESTRUCTION. ENGLAND’S VICTORY.
IT WAS AGAINST the establishment of a world of slaves that England was fighting. A few men of more conceit than competence, fanatical, austere, untroubled by doubts, were to rule and order the lives of men as they chose. Below these few, Philip and his Council, the Pope, the Director of the Inquisition, buzzed the swarm of administrators and Governors and their staffs and departments, some clever, some only cunning, some only inadequate, many corrupt, many cruel and all arrogant: below them a few, merchants, scholars, and such like, were to enjoy a shadowy independence, but even for them the prison doors were always ajar. Lower still was the great mass of men and women who were to work as they were bidden, the slaves. That was to be the future of England as it was the present of every dominion which fell into the Spaniards’ hands. And the methods of establishing this hierarchy were the same, mass-murder, savage tortures, years of imprisonment for little faults, the suppression of reason and the right to think, the reduction of man to beast.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 895