Book: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 20

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Drake, in his hot self-confidence, thought otherwise. As he rode out the
gale under the lee of St. Vincent, and the tempest howled through his
rigging, once more there fell upon him the shadow of the tragedy which
could never cease to darken his judgment. Already, in Cadiz harbor, he
had thought his vice-admiral too careful of his ship when the shot were
flying; and now he saw in him another Doughty sent by the friends of
Spain to hang on his arm. "In persisting," he told Lord Burleigh, "he
committed a double offence, not only against me, but it toucheth
further." To his embittered sense the querulous protest was a treasonable
attack on his own authority, and in his fury he brutally dismissed the
old admiral from his command and placed him under arrest on his
flag-ship. In vain the astonished veteran protested his innocence,
apologized, and made submission. Drake would not listen. The ring of the
heads-man's sword upon the desolate shores of Patagonia had deafened his
ears to such entreaties forever.

Two days later he was back in Lagos Bay, landing a thousand men for an
attempt upon the town, but in the evening, after vainly endeavoring to
induce the bodies of cavalry which hovered on their line of march to
come within reach, the troops reembarked, reporting the place too strong
to be taken by assault. Such reports were not to Drake's liking. It was
no mere cross-raiding on which he was bent, but a sagacious stroke that
was essential to the development of his new ideas. To get the command of
the seas it was necessary that he should be able to keep the seas, and
for this a safe anchorage and watering-places were necessary. In default
of Lagos, strategy and convenience both indicated St. Vincent road for
his purpose. It was commanded by forts, but that did not deter him; and,
resolved to have his way, he next day landed in person near Cape Sagres.

On the summit of the headland was a castle accessible on two sides only.
The English military officers declared that a hundred determined men
could hold it against the whole of Drake's force. But he would not
listen; it commanded the watering-place, and he meant to have it.
Detaching part of his force against a neighboring fort, which was at
once evacuated, he himself advanced against the castle, and at the
summit of the cliff found himself confronted with walls thirty feet
high, bristling with brass guns and crowded with soldiers. The garrison
had just been reenforced by that of the evacuated fort, and to every one
but the admiral the affair was hopeless. He attacked with his
musketeers, and, when they had exhausted their ammunition, in the name
of his queen and mistress he summoned the place to surrender. In the
name of his lord and master the Spanish captain laughed at him.
Whereupon Drake, more obstinate than ever, sent down to the fleet for
fagots, and began piling them against the outer gate to fire it. So
desperate was the resistance that again and again the attempt failed.
For two hours the struggle lasted. As fast as the defenders threw down
the fire, the English piled it up again; and in the midst of the smoke
and the bullets the admiral toiled like a common seaman, with his arms
full of fagots and his face black with soot. How long his obstinacy
would have continued it is impossible to say, but at the end of the two
hours the Spanish commandant sank under his wounds and the garrison
surrendered. Daunted by a feat which every one regarded as little short
of a miracle, the castle and monastery of St. Vincent, together with
another fort near it, capitulated at the magician's first summons, and
left him in complete possession of the anchorage to water the fleet
undisturbed.

Having fired the captured strongholds, and tumbled their guns over the
cliffs into the sea, Drake returned to the fleet to find the sailors had
not been idle. Between St. Vincent and a village some nine miles to the
eastward which they had been ordered to burn, they had taken forty-seven
barks and caravels laden with stores for the Armada, and destroyed
between fifty and sixty fishing-boats with miles of nets. The
tunny-fishery, on which the whole of the adjacent country chiefly
depended for its subsistence, was annihilated. For the time Drake's work
on the Algarve coast was done, and, having watered the fleet and fished
up the captured guns, he sailed for Lisbon.

His own idea had been to land there and smite Philip's preparation at
its heart, but this the Government had expressly forbidden. Still he
hoped that the havoc he had made and the insults he had put on the
Spanish coasts might goad Santa Cruz to come out and fight him. For
three days he lay off Cascaes, in sight of Lisbon, threatening an attack
and sending polished taunts to the Spanish admiral. He offered to convoy
him to England if his course lay that way; he took prizes under his very
nose; with his fleet in loose order he sailed up to the very entrance of
the harbor; but, though seven galleys lay on their oars watching him
from the mouth of the Tagus, Santa Cruz would not move, and Drake
learned at last how deep was the wound he had inflicted.

Philip's organization was now completely dislocated. The fleet at Lisbon
was unmanned. Its crews had been shattered in Cadiz harbor, and the
troops that were intended for it had been thrown into the defenceless
city under the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, with orders that while Drake was
on the coast not a man was to be moved. All thought of an attack on
England was given up. It was even doubted whether by straining every
nerve it would be possible to save the homeward-bound fleets from the
Indies. The Italian squadrons were ordered to land their troops at
Cartagena, and Philip hoped that by forced marches across the peninsula
they might possibly arrive in time for Santa Cruz to sail before it was
too late. Every one else looked on the convoys as doomed. For Drake,
having assured himself that Santa Cruz could not stir, and that England
was safe for a year at least, resolved to make for the Azores and wait
for the prey that had so narrowly escaped him the year before.

On the third day of his stay off the Tagus he took advantage of a
northerly gale to run for the anchorage at St. Vincent, which he had
made his own, and where he intended to water and refresh for the voyage.
There, huddled under the lee of the cape, was found a fresh crowd of
store-ships, which he seized. For nine days he lay there, rummaging the
ships, taking in water, and sending the men ashore in batches to shake
off the sickness with which, as usual, the fleet was attacked. Every day
new prizes fell into his hands, and ere he sailed he had taken and
destroyed forty more vessels and a hundred small craft. On May 22d he
put to sea, and, as the news spread, a panic seized every commercial
centre in the Spanish dominions. Half the merchants in Philip's empire
saw ruin before them: the whole year's produce both of the East and West
Indian trade was at Drake's mercy; and no one knew how Spain, with its
resources already strained to the utmost, would survive the shock.

Whatever might have been the result had these fears been realized,
destiny seemed to have decided that in the Channel should be played the
last great scene. Drake had not been two days out when a storm struck
his fleet and scattered it over the face of the sea. For three days it
raged with extraordinary fury. Drake's own flag-ship was in dire peril,
and, when the heavens cleared, only three of the battle-ships and half a
dozen smaller craft were together. Not a single merchant-ship was to be
seen, and the Lion, Borough's flag-ship, on which he was still a
prisoner, was missing too. Before leaving St. Vincent Drake had told
Walsingham that he ought to have at least six more cruisers to do his
work properly, and now two-thirds of what he had before were gone. Still
he held on, hoping to find some of the missing ships at the rendezvous
in the Azores.

On the morning of June 8th St. Michael's was sighted, but not a sail had
rejoined the flag except the Spy, one of the Queen's gunboats, with the
captain and master of the Lion on board, and they reported that the crew
of Borough's ship had mutinied and carried him home. Then, in the depth
of his disappointment, Drake's fury blazed out anew. His fierce
self-reliance and fanatic patriotism had taught him to see a traitor in
every man that opposed him, and the bitter experience of his lifelong
struggle against the enemies of his country and his creed could bring
him but to one conclusion--Borough was the traitor who had ruined the
greatest chance of his career! A jury was impanelled, the deserter tried
for his life, found guilty, and condemned to death.

It was little good except to relieve the admiral's anger. The splendid
opportunity was gone; the fruit of his brilliant exploit was snatched
from his lips; for, even had the remnant of his fleet been less
shattered than it was, the great convoys were beyond its strength. The
only hope was to hurry back to England and beg for reenforcements to
fight Santa Cruz for the life-blood of Spain.

Yet ere he sailed there was a consolation at hand. As he lay waiting for
his shattered squadron to close up, fuming at traitors, and marvelling
at the inscrutable will of Heaven, the dawn of June 9th lit up the gray
sea and showed him a huge carack in the offing. On a smart breeze he
gave chase. The carack kept her course, but, as Drake drew near, began
displaying her colors nervously. Drake made not a sign in reply, but
held on till he was within range. Then on a sudden, with a blaze of her
ensigns and her broadside, the Elizabeth Bonaventura told the stranger
what she was. Two of Drake's squadron threw themselves resolutely
athwart-hawse of the enemy, and the rest, plying her hard with shot,
prepared to run aboard her towering hull. But, ere they closed, her flag
fluttered sadly down, and the famous San Filippe, the King of Spain's
own East-Indiaman, the largest merchantman afloat, was a prize in
Drake's hands.

Well might he wonder now at God's providence, as with lightened heart
he sailed homeward with his prize. For not only was it the richest ever
seen in England before or since, not only was its cargo valued at over
a million of our money, but in it were papers which disclosed to our
merchants all the mysteries and richness of the East India trade. It
was a revelation to English commerce. It intoxicated the soberest
capitalists; and they knew no rest till they had formed the great East
India Company, to widen the gap which Drake had opened, and to lay the
foundation of our Indian Empire.




DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA

A.D. 1588

SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY


Two years after the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the throne of
England, the Geneva Confession of Faith (Calvinistic) was adopted by
the Scottish nation, which thus formally became Protestant. The aim
of Mary, Queen of Scots, to restore the Catholic religion in that
kingdom added many complications to her royal task, as well as to
her personal fortunes. Her final condemnation and execution, 1587,
for conspiracy against Elizabeth, occurred at a time when the shadow
of Spanish supremacy was being cast broadly over Europe. The Spanish
power was still attempting the subjugation of the Netherlands, and
it was the ambition of Philip II to bring England also under his own
sway and that of Rome.

Elizabeth had given aid to Philip's rebellious subjects in the
Netherlands, and Sir Francis Drake had committed many depredations
upon Spain and her colonies. For the purpose of avenging these acts,
as well as the death of Mary Stuart, and of overthrowing the
Reformation in Great Britain, Philip gathered up all his strength
and prepared to hurl a mighty naval force, the "Invincible Armada,"
against England.

Creasy's masterly survey of the European situation at this period
unfolds the Anglo-Spanish complications. His exhaustive account of
the Armada and its ill-fated enterprise makes clear everything
important in this famous passage of history.


On the afternoon of July 19, 1588, a group of English captains was
collected at the bowling green on the Hoe, at Plymouth, whose equals
have never before or since been brought together, even at that favorite
mustering-place of the heroes of the British navy. There was Sir Francis
Drake, the first English circumnavigator of the globe, the terror of
every Spanish coast in the Old World and the New; there was Sir John
Hawkins, the rough veteran of many a daring voyage on the African and
American seas and of many a desperate battle; there was Sir Martin
Frobisher, one of the earliest explorers of the Arctic seas in search of
the northwest passage.

There was the high admiral of England, Lord Howard of Effingham,
prodigal of all things in his country's cause, and who had recently had
the noble daring to refuse to dismantle part of the fleet, though the
Queen had sent him orders to do so in consequence of an exaggerated
report that the enemy had been driven back and shattered by a storm.
Lord Howard--whom contemporary writers describe as being of a wise and
noble courage, skilful in sea matters, wary and provident, and of great
esteem among the sailors--resolved to risk his sovereign's anger, and to
keep the ships afloat at his own charge, rather than that England should
run the peril of losing their protection.

Another of our Elizabethan sea-kings, Sir Walter Raleigh, was at that
time commissioned to raise and equip the land forces of Cornwall; but we
may well believe that he must have availed himself of the opportunity of
consulting with the lord admiral and the other high officers, which was
offered by the English fleet putting into Plymouth; and we may look on
Raleigh as one of the group that was assembled at the bowling green on
the Hoe.

Many other brave men and skilful mariners, besides the chiefs whose
names have been mentioned, were there, enjoying, with true sailor-like
merriment, their temporary relaxation from duty. In the harbor lay the
English fleet with which they had just returned from a cruise to Corunna
in search of information respecting the real condition and movements of
the hostile armada. Lord Howard had ascertained that our enemies, though
tempest-tossed, were still formidably strong; and, fearing that part of
their fleet might make for England in his absence, he had hurried back
to the Devonshire coast. He resumed his station at Plymouth, and waited
there for certain tidings of the Spaniards' approach.

A match at bowls was being played, in which Drake and other high
officers of the fleet were engaged, when a small armed vessel was seen
running before the wind into Plymouth harbor with all sails set. Her
commander landed in haste, and eagerly sought the place where the
English lord admiral and his captains were standing. His name was
Fleming; he was the master of a Scotch privateer; and he told the
English officers that he had that morning seen the Spanish Armada off
the Cornish coast. At this exciting information the captains began to
hurry down to the water, and there was a shouting for the ships' boats;
but Drake coolly checked his comrades, and insisted that the match
should be played out. He said that there was plenty of time both to win
the game and beat the Spaniards. The best and bravest match that ever
was scored was resumed accordingly. Drake and his friends aimed their
last bowls with the same steady, calculating coolness with which they
were about to point their guns. The winning cast was made; and then they
went on board and prepared for action, with their hearts as light and
their nerves as firm as they had been on the Hoe bowling green.

Meanwhile the messengers and signals had been despatched fast and far
through England, to warn each town and village that the enemy had come
at last. In every seaport there was instant making ready by land and by
sea; in every shire and every city there was instant mustering of horse
and man. But England's best defence then, as ever, was in her fleet;
and, after warping laboriously out of Plymouth harbor against the wind,
the lord admiral stood westward under easy sail, keeping an anxious
look-out for the armada, the approach of which was soon announced by
Cornish fisher-boats and signals from the Cornish cliffs.

It is not easy, without some reflection and care, to comprehend the full
extent of the peril which England then ran from the power and the
ambition of Spain, or to appreciate the importance of that crisis in the
history of the world. Queen Elizabeth had found at her accession an
encumbered revenue, a divided people, and an unsuccessful foreign war,
in which the last remnant of our possessions in France had been lost;
she had also a formidable pretender to her crown, whose interests were
favored by all the Roman Catholic powers. It is true that, during the
years of her reign which had passed away before the attempted invasion
of 1588, she had revived the commercial prosperity, the national spirit,
and the national loyalty of England. But her resources to cope with the
colossal power of Philip II still seemed most scanty; and she had not a
single foreign ally, except the Dutch, who were themselves struggling
hard, and, as it seemed, hopelessly, to maintain their revolt against
Spain.

On the other hand, Philip II was absolute master of an empire so
superior to the other states of the world in extent, in resources, and
especially in military and naval forces as to make the project of
enlarging that empire into a universal monarchy seem a perfectly
feasible scheme; and Philip had both the ambition to perform that
project and the resolution to devote all his energies and all his means
to its realization. Since the downfall of the Roman Empire no such
preponderating power had existed in the world. During the mediaeval
centuries the chief European kingdoms were slowly moulding themselves
out of the feudal chaos; and though the wars with each other were
numerous and desperate, and several of their respective kings figured
for a time as mighty conquerors, none of them in those times acquired
the consistency and perfect organization which are requisite for a
long-sustained career of aggrandizement. After the consolidation of the
great kingdoms they for some time kept each other in mutual check.

During the first half of the sixteenth century the balancing system was
successfully practised by European statesmen. But when Philip II
reigned, France had become so miserably weak through her civil wars that
he had nothing to dread from the rival state which had so long curbed
his father, the Emperor Charles V. In Germany, Italy, and Poland he had
either zealous friends and dependents or weak and divided enemies.
Against the Turks he had gained great and glorious successes; and he
might look round the Continent of Europe without discerning a single
antagonist of whom he could stand in awe. Spain, when he acceded to the
throne, was at the zenith of her power.

The hardihood and spirit which the Aragonese, the Castilians, and the
other nations of the peninsula had acquired during centuries of free
institutions and successful war against the Moors had not yet become
obliterated. Charles V had, indeed, destroyed the liberties of Spain;
but that had been done too recently for its full evil to be felt in
Philip's time. A people cannot be debased in a single generation; and
the Spaniards under Charles V and Philip II proved the truth of the
remark that no nation is ever so formidable to its neighbors, for a
time, as a nation which, after being trained up in self-government,
passes suddenly under a despotic ruler. The energy of democratic
institutions survives for a few generations, and to it are superadded
the decision and certainty which are the attributes of government when
all its powers are directed by a single mind. It is true that this
preter-natural vigor is short-lived: national corruption and debasement
gradually follow the loss of the national liberties; but there is an
interval before their workings are felt, and in that interval the most
ambitious schemes of foreign conquest are often successfully undertaken.

Philip had also the advantage of finding himself at the head of a large
standing army in a perfect state of discipline and equipment, in an age
when, except some few insignificant corps, standing armies were unknown
in Christendom. The renown of the Spanish troops was justly high, and
the infantry in particular was considered the best in the world. His
fleet, also, was far more numerous and better appointed than that of any
other European power; and both his soldiers and his sailors had the
confidence in themselves and their commanders which a long career of
successful warfare alone can create.

Besides the Spanish crown, Philip succeeded to the kingdom of Naples and
Sicily, the duchy of Milan, Franche-Comte, and the Netherlands. In
Africa he possessed Tunis, Oran, the Cape Verd and the Canary islands;
and in Asia, the Philippine and Sunda islands and a part of the
Moluccas. Beyond the Atlantic he was lord of the most splendid portions
of the New World, which Columbus found "for Castile and Leon." The
empires of Peru and Mexico, New Spain, and Chile, with their abundant
mines of the precious metals, Espanola and Cuba, and many other of the
American islands were provinces of the sovereign of Spain.

Whatever diminution the Spanish empire might have sustained in the
Netherlands seemed to be more than compensated by the acquisition of
Portugal, which Philip had completely conquered in 1580. Not only that
ancient kingdom itself, but all the fruits of the maritime enterprises
of the Portuguese, had fallen into Philip's hands. All the Portuguese
colonies in America, Africa, and the East Indies acknowledged the
sovereignty of the King of Spain, who thus not only united the whole
Iberian peninsula under his single sceptre, but had acquired a
transmarine empire little inferior in wealth and extent to that which he
had inherited at his accession. The splendid victory which his fleet, in
conjunction with the papal and Venetian galleys, had gained at Lepanto
over the Turks, had deservedly exalted the fame of the Spanish marine
throughout Christendom; and when Philip had reigned thirty-five years,
the vigor of his empire seemed unbroken, and the glory of the Spanish
arms had increased, and was increasing throughout the world.

One nation only had been his active, his persevering, and his successful
foe. England had encouraged his revolted subjects in Flanders against
him, and given them the aid, in men and money, without which they must
soon have been humbled in the dust. English ships had plundered his
colonies; had defied his supremacy in the New World as well as the Old;
they had inflicted ignominious defeats on his squadrons; they had
captured his cities and burned his arsenals on the very coasts of Spain.
The English had made Philip himself the object of personal insult. He
was held up to ridicule in their stage plays and masks, and these scoffs
at the man had--as is not unusual in such cases--excited the anger of
the absolute King even more vehemently than the injuries inflicted on
his power. Personal as well as political revenge urged him to attack
England. Were she once subdued, the Dutch must submit; France could not
cope with him; the empire would not oppose him; and universal dominion
seemed sure to be the result of the conquest of that malignant island.

There was yet another and a stronger feeling which armed King Philip
against England. He was one of the sincerest and one of the sternest
bigots of his age. He looked on himself, and was looked on by others, as
the appointed champion to extirpate heresy and reestablish the papal
power throughout Europe.

A powerful reaction against Protestantism had taken place since the
commencement of the second half of the sixteenth century, and he looked
on himself as destined to complete it. The Reformed doctrines had been
thoroughly rooted out from Italy and Spain. Belgium, which had
previously been half Protestant, had been reconquered both in allegiance
and creed by Philip, and had become one of the most Catholic countries
in the world. Half Germany had been won back to the old faith. In Savoy,
in Switzerland, and many other countries the progress of the
Counter-reformation had been rapid and decisive. The Catholic league
seemed victorious in France. The papal court itself had shaken off the
supineness of recent centuries, and, at the head of the Jesuits and the
other new ecclesiastical orders, was displaying a vigor and a boldness
worthy of the days of Hildebrand or Innocent III.

Throughout Continental Europe the Protestants, discomfited and dismayed,
looked to England as their protector and refuge. England was the
acknowledged central point of Protestant power and policy; and to
conquer England was to stab Protestantism to the very heart. Sixtus V,
the then reigning Pope, earnestly exhorted Philip to this enterprise.
And when the tidings reached Italy and Spain that the Protestant Queen
of England had put to death her Catholic prisoner, Mary, Queen of Scots,
the fury of the Vatican and Escurial knew no bounds. Elizabeth was
denounced as the murderous heretic whose destruction was an instant
duty.

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