By England's Aid; Or, the Freeing of the Netherlands, 1585-1604

by G. A. Henty

  CHAPTER IX.

  THE ROUT OF THE ARMADA.

  The fight between the fleets had begun on Sunday morning, and at theend of the third day the strength of the Armada remained unbroken. Themoral effect had no doubt been great, but the loss of two or threeships was a trifle to so large a force, and the spirit of the Spaniardshad been raised by the gallant and successful defence the _San Marcos_had made on the Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday was again calm. Themagazines of the English ships were empty. Though express after expresshad been sent off praying that ammunition might be sent, none hadarrived, and the two fleets lay six miles apart without action, savethat the galleasses came out and skirmished for a while with theEnglish ships.

  That evening, however, a supply of ammunition sufficient for anotherday's fighting arrived, and soon after daybreak the English fleet moveddown towards the Armada, and for the first time engaged them at closequarters. The _Ark-Raleigh_, the _Bear_, the _Elizabeth Jones_, the_Lion_, and the _Victory_ bore on straight into the centre of theSpanish galleons, exchanging broadsides with each as they passed.Oquendo with his vessel was right in the course of the Englishflagship, and a collision took place, in which the _Ark-Raleigh's_rudder was unshipped, and she became unmanageable.

  The enemy's vessels closed round her, but she lowered her boats, andthese, in spite of the fire of the enemy, brought her head round beforethe wind, and she made her way through her antagonists and got clear.For several hours the battle continued. The Spanish fire was so slow,and their ships so unwieldy, that it was rarely they succeeded infiring a shot into their active foes, while the English shot tore theirway through the massive timbers of the Spanish vessels, scattering thesplinters thickly among the soldiers, who had been sent below to be outof harm's way; but beyond this, and inflicting much damage upon mastsand spars, the day's fighting had no actual results. No captures weremade by the English.

  The Spaniards suffered, but made no sign; nevertheless their confidencein their powers was shaken. Their ammunition was also running short,and they had no hope of refilling their magazines until they effected ajunction with Parma. Their admiral that night wrote to him asking thattwo shiploads of shot and powder might be sent to him immediately. "Theenemy pursue me," he said; "they fire upon me most days from morningtill nightfall, but they will not close and grapple. I have given themevery opportunity. I have purposely left ships exposed to tempt them toboard, but they decline to do it; and there is no remedy, for they areswift and we are slow. They have men and ammunition in abundance." TheSpanish admiral was unaware that the English magazines were even moreempty than his own.

  On Friday morning Howard sailed for Dover to take in the supplies thatwere so sorely needed. The Earl of Sussex, who was in command of thecastle, gave him all that he had, and the stores taken from the prizescame up in light vessels and were divided among the fleet, and in theevening the English fleet again sailed out and took up its place in therear of the Armada.

  On Saturday morning the weather changed. After six days of calm andsunshine it began to blow hard from the west, with driving showers. TheSpaniards, having no pilots who knew the coasts, anchored off Calais.The English fleet, closely watching their movements, brought up twomiles astern.

  The Spanish admiral sent off another urgent letter to Parma at Dunkirk,begging him to send immediately thirty or forty fast gunboats to keepthe English at bay. Parma had received the admiral's letters, and wasperfectly ready to embark his troops, but could not do this as theadmiral expected he would, until the fleet came up to protect him. Thelighters and barges he had constructed for the passage were only fit tokeep the sea in calm weather, and would have been wholly at the mercyof even a single English ship of war. He could not, therefore, embarkhis troops until the duke arrived. As to the gunboats asked for, he hadnone with him.

  But while the Spanish admiral had grave cause for uneasiness in thesituation in which he found himself, Lord Howard had no greater reasonfor satisfaction. In spite of his efforts the enemy's fleet had arrivedat their destination with their strength still unimpaired, and were incommunication with the Duke of Parma's army. Lord Seymour had come upwith a squadron from the mouth of the Thames, but his ships had but oneday's provisions on board, while Drake and Howard's divisions had allbut exhausted their supplies. The previous day's fighting had used upthe ammunition obtained at Dover. Starvation would drive every Englishship from the sea in another week at latest. The Channel would then beopen for the passage of Parma's army.

  At five o'clock on Sunday evening a council of war was held in LordHoward's cabin, and it was determined, that as it was impossible toattack the Spanish fleet where they lay at the edge of shallow water,an attempt must be made to drive them out into the Channel withfire-ships. Eight of the private vessels were accordingly taken, andsuch combustibles as could be found--pitch, tar, old sails, emptycasks, and other materials--were piled into them. At midnight the tideset directly from the English fleet towards the Spaniards, and thefire-ships, manned by their respective crews, hoisted sail and drovedown towards them.

  When near the Armada the crews set fire to the combustibles, and takingto their boats rowed back to the fleet. At the sight of the flamesbursting up from the eight ships bearing down upon them, the Spaniardswere seized with a panic. The admiral fired a gun as a signal, and allcut their cables and hoisted sail, and succeeded in getting out to seabefore the fire-ships arrived. They lay-to six miles from shore,intending to return in the morning and recover their anchors; but Drakewith his division of the fleet, and Seymour with the squadron from theThames, weighed their anchors and stood off after them, while Howardwith his division remained off Calais, where, in the morning, thelargest of the four galleasses was seen aground on Calais Bar. LordHoward wasted many precious hours in capturing her before he set off tojoin Drake and Seymour, who were thundering against the Spanish fleet.The wind had got up during the night, and the Spaniards had driftedfarther than they expected, and when morning dawned were scattered overthe sea off Gravelines. Signals were made for them to collect, butbefore they could do so Drake and Seymour came up and opened firewithin pistol-shot. The English admiral saw at once that, with the windrising from the south, if he could drive the unwieldy galleons norththey would be cut off from Dunkirk, and would not be able to beat backagain until there was a change of wind.

  All through the morning the English ships poured a continuous shower ofshot into the Spanish vessels, which, huddled together in a confusedmass, were unable to make any return whatever. The duke and Oquendo,with some of the best sailors among the fleet, tried to bear out fromthe crowd and get room to manoeuvre, but Drake's ships were tooweatherly and too well handled to permit of this, and they were drivenback again into the confused mass, which was being slowly forcedtowards the shoals and banks of the coasts.

  Howard came up at noon with his division, and until sunset the fire wasmaintained, by which time almost the last cartridge was spent, and thecrews worn out by their incessant labour. They took no prizes, for theynever attempted to board. They saw three great galleons go down, andthree more drift away towards the sands of Ostend, where they werecaptured either by the English garrisoned there or by three vesselssent by Lord Willoughby from Flushing, under the command of FrancisVere. Had the English ammunition lasted but a few more hours the wholeof the Armada would have been either driven ashore or sunk; but whenthe last cartridge had been burned the assailants drew off to take onboard the stores which had, while the fighting was going on, beenbrought up by some provision ships from the Thames.

  But the Spaniards were in no condition to benefit by the cessation ofthe attack. In spite of the terrible disadvantages under which theylaboured, they had fought with splendid courage. The sides of thegalleons had been riddled with shot, and the splinters caused by therending of the massive timbers had done even greater execution than theiron hail. Being always to leeward, and heeling over with the wind, theships had been struck again and again below the water-line, and manywere only kept from sinking by nailin
g sheets of lead over theshot-holes.

  Their guns were, for the most part, dismounted or knocked to pieces.Several had lost masts, the carnage among the crews was frightful, andyet not a single ship hauled down her colours. The _San Matteo_, whichwas one of those that grounded between Ostend and Sluys, fought to thelast, and kept Francis Vere's three ships at bay for two hours, untilshe was at last carried by boarding.

  Left to themselves at the end of the day, the Spaniards gathered inwhat order they could, and made sail for the north. On counting thelosses they found that four thousand men had been killed or drowned,and the number of wounded must have been far greater. The crews wereutterly worn-out and exhausted. They had the day before been kept atwork cleaning and refitting, and the fire-ships had disturbed themearly in the night. During the engagement there had been no time toserve out food, and the labours of the long struggle had completelyexhausted them. Worst of all, they were utterly disheartened by theday's fighting. They had been pounded by their active foes, who firedfive shots to their one, and whose vessels sailed round and round them,while they themselves had inflicted no damage that they could perceiveupon their assailants.

  The English admirals had no idea of the extent of the victory they hadwon. Howard, who had only come up in the middle of the fight, believedthat they "were still wonderful great and strong," while even Drake,who saw more clearly how much they had suffered, only ventured to hopethat some days at least would elapse before they could join hands withParma. In spite of the small store of ammunition that had arrived thenight before, the English magazines were almost empty; but theydetermined to show a good front, and "give chase as though they wantednothing."

  When the morning dawned the English fleet were still to windward of theArmada, while to leeward were lines of white foam, where the sea wasbreaking on the shoals of Holland. It seemed that the Armada was lost.At this critical moment the wind suddenly shifted to the east. Thisthrew the English fleet to leeward, and enabled the Spaniards to headout from the coast and make for the North Sea. The Spanish admiral helda council. The sea had gone down, and they had now a fair wind forCalais; and the question was put to the sailing-masters and captainswhether they should return into the Channel or sail north roundScotland and Ireland, and so return to Spain. The former was thecourageous course, but the spirit of the Spaniards was broken, and thevote was in favour of what appeared a way of escape. Therefore, theshattered fleet bore on its way north. On board the English fleet asimilar council was being held, and it was determined that LordSeymour's squadron should return to guard the Channel, lest Parmashould take advantage of the absence of the fleet to cross from Dunkirkto England, and that Howard and Drake with their ninety ships shouldpursue the Spaniards; for it was not for a moment supposed that thelatter had entirely abandoned their enterprise, and intended to returnto Spain without making another effort to rejoin Parma.

  During the week's fighting Geoffrey and Lionel Vickars had taken suchpart as they could in the contest; but as there had been nohand-to-hand fighting, the position of the volunteers on board thefleet had been little more than that of spectators. The crews workedthe guns and manoeuvred the sails, and the most the lads could do wasto relieve the ship-boys in carrying up powder and shot, and to takeround drink to men serving the guns. When not otherwise engaged theyhad watched with intense excitement the manoeuvres of their own shipand of those near them, as they swept down towards the great hulls,delivered their broadsides, and then shot off again before theSpaniards had had time to discharge more than a gun or two. The sailshad been pierced in several places, but not a single shot had struckthe hull of the vessel. In the last day's fighting, however, the_Active_ became entangled among several of the Spanish galleons, andbeing almost becalmed by their lofty hulls, one of them ran full ather, and rolling heavily in the sea, seemed as if she would overwhelmher puny antagonist.

  GEOFFREY CARRIED OVERBOARD BY THE FALLING MAST]

  Geoffrey was standing at the end of the poop when the mizzen riggingbecame entangled in the stern gallery of the Spaniard, and a momentlater the mast snapped off, and as it fell carried him overboard. For amoment he was half-stunned, but caught hold of a piece of timber shotaway from one of the enemy's ships, and clung to it mechanically. Whenhe recovered and looked round, the _Active_ had drawn out from betweenthe Spaniards, and the great galleon which had so nearly sunk her wasclose beside him.

  The sea was in a turmoil; the waves as they set in from the west beingbroken up by the rolling of the great ships, and torn by the hail ofshot. The noise was prodigious, from the incessant cannonade kept up bythe English ships and the return of the artillery on board the Armada,the rending of timber, the heavy crashes as the great galleons rolledagainst one another, the shouting on board the Spanish ships, thecreaking of the masts and yards, and the flapping of the sails.

  On trying to strike out, Geoffrey found that as he had been knockedoverboard he had struck his right knee severely against the rail of thevessel, and was at present unable to use that leg. Fearful of being rundown by one of the great ships, and still more of being caught betweentwo of them as they rolled, he looked round to try to get sight of anEnglish ship in the throng. Then, seeing that he was entirelysurrounded by Spaniards, he left the spar and swam as well as he couldto the bow of a great ship close beside him, and grasping a ropetrailing from the bowsprit, managed by its aid to climb up until hereached the bobstay, across which he seated himself with his back tothe stem. The position was a precarious one, and after a time he gainedthe wooden carved work above, and obtained a seat there just below thebowsprit, and hidden from the sight of those on deck a few feet abovehim. As he knew the vessels were drifting to leeward towards theshoals, he hoped to remain hidden until the vessel struck, and then togain the shore.

  Presently the shifting of the positions of the ships brought the vesselon which he was into the outside line. The shots now flew thicklyabout, and he could from time to time feel a jar as the vessel wasstruck.

  So an hour went on. At the end of that time he heard a great shoutingon deck, and the sound of men running to and fro. Happening to lookdown he saw that the sea was but a few feet below him, and knew thatthe great galleon was sinking. Another quarter of an hour she was somuch lower that he was sure she could not swim many minutes longer; andto avoid being drawn down with her he dropped into the water and swamoff. He was but a short distance away when he heard a loud cry, andglancing over his shoulder saw the ship disappearing. He swamdesperately, but was caught in the suck and carried under; but therewas no great depth of water, and he soon came to the surface again. Thesea was dotted with struggling men and pieces of wreckage. He swam toone of the latter, and held on until he saw some boats, which the nextSpanish ship had lowered when she saw her consort disappearing, rowingtowards them, and was soon afterwards hauled into one of them. He hadclosed his eyes as it came up, and assumed the appearance ofinsensibility, and he lay in the bottom of the boat immovable, untilafter a time he heard voices above, and then felt himself being carriedup the ladder and laid down on the deck.

  He remained quiet for some time, thinking over what he had best do. Hewas certain that were it known he was English he would at once bestabbed and thrown overboard, for there was no hope of quarter; but hewas for some time unable to devise any plan by which, even for a shorttime, to conceal his nationality. He only knew a few words of Spanish,and would be detected the moment he opened his lips. He thought ofleaping up suddenly and jumping overboard; but his chance of reachingthe English ships to windward would be slight indeed. At last an ideastruck him, and sitting up he opened his eyes and looked round. Severalother Spaniards who had been picked up lay exhausted on the deck nearhim. A party of soldiers and sailors close by were working a cannon.The bulwarks were shot away in many places, dead and dying men layscattered about, the decks were everywhere stained with blood, and noone paid any attention to him until presently the fire began toslacken. Shortly afterwards a Spanish officer came up and spoke to him.

  Geo
ffrey rose to his feet, rubbed his eyes, yawned, and burst into anidiotic laugh. The officer spoke again but he paid no attention, andthe Spaniard turned away, believing that the lad had lost his sensesfrom fear and the horrors of the day.

  As night came on he was several times addressed, but always with thesame result. When after dark food and wine were served out, he seizedthe portion offered to him, and hurrying away crouched under theshelter of a gun, and devoured it as if fearing it would be taken fromhim again.

  When he saw that the sailors were beginning to repair some of the mostnecessary ropes and stays that had been shot away, he pushed his waythrough them and took his share of the work, laughing idiotically fromtime to time. He had, when he saw that the galleon was sinking, takenoff his doublet, the better to be able to swim, and in his shirt andtrunks there was nothing to distinguish him from a Spaniard, and nonesuspected that he was other than he seemed to be--a ship's boy, who hadlost his senses from fear. When the work was done, he threw himself onthe deck with the weary sailors. His hopes were that the battle wouldbe renewed in the morning, and that either the ship might be captured,or that an English vessel might pass so close alongside that he mightleap over and swim to her.

  Great was his disappointment next day when the sudden change of windgave the Spanish fleet the weather-gage, and enabled them to steer awayfor the north. He joined in the work of the crew, paying no attentionwhatever to what was passing around him, or heeding in the slightestthe remarks made to him. Once or twice when an officer spoke to himsternly he gave a little cry, ran to the side, and crouched down as ifin abject fear. In a very short time no attention was paid to him, andhe was suffered to go about as he chose, being regarded as a harmlessimbecile. He was in hopes that the next day the Spaniards would changetheir course and endeavour to beat back to the Channel, and was at oncedisappointed and surprised as they sped on before the south-westerlywind, which was hourly increasing in force. Some miles behind he couldsee the English squadron in pursuit; but these made no attempt to closeup, being well contented to see the Armada sailing away, and being toostraitened in ammunition to wish to bring on an engagement so long asthe Spaniards were following their present course.

  The wind blew with ever-increasing force; the lightly ballasted shipsmade bad weather, rolling deep in the seas, straining heavily, andleaking badly through the opening seams and the hastily-stoppedshot-holes. Water was extremely scarce, and at a signal from theadmiral all the horses and mules were thrown overboard in order tohusband the supply. Several of the masts, badly injured by the Englishshot, went by the board, and the vessels dropped behind crippled, to bepicked up by the pursuing fleet.

  Lord Howard followed as far as the mouth of the Forth; and seeing thatthe Spaniards made no effort to enter the estuary, and his provisionsbeing now well-nigh exhausted, he hove the fleet about and made backfor the Channel, leaving two small vessels only to follow the Armadaand watch its course, believing that it would make for Denmark, refitthere, and then return to rejoin Parma.

  It was a grievous disappointment to the English to be thus forced bywant of provisions to relinquish the pursuit. Had they been properlysupplied with provisions and ammunition they could have made an end ofthe Armada; whereas, they believed that by allowing them now to escapethe whole work would have to be done over again. They had sore troubleto get back again off the Norfolk coast. The wind became so furiousthat the fleet was scattered. A few of the largest ships reachedMargate; others were driven into Harwich, others with difficulty keptthe sea until the storm broke.

  It might have been thought that after such service as the fleet hadrendered even Elizabeth might have been generous; but now that thedanger was over, she became more niggardly than ever. No freshprovisions were supplied for the sick men, and though in the fight offthe Dutch coast only some fifty or sixty had been killed, in the courseof a very short time the crews were so weakened by deaths and diseasethat scarce a ship could have put to sea, however urgent the necessity.Drake and Howard spent every penny they could raise in buying freshmeat and vegetables, and in procuring some sort of shelter on shore forthe sick. Had the men received the wages due to them they could havemade a shift to have purchased what they so urgently required; butthough the Treasury was full of money, not a penny was forthcominguntil every item of the accounts had been investigated and squabbledover. Howard was compelled to pay from his private purse for everythingthat had been purchased at Plymouth, Sir John Hawkins was absolutelyruined by the demands made on him to pay for necessaries supplied tothe fleet, and had the admirals and sailors of the fleet that savedEngland behaved like ignominious cowards, their treatment could nothave been worse than that which they received at the hands of theirsovereign.

  But while the English seamen were dying like sheep from disease andneglect, their conquered foes were faring no better. They had breathedfreely for the first time when they saw the English fleet bear up; anexamination was made of the provisions that were left, and the crewswere placed on rations of eight ounces of bread, half a pint of wine,and a pint of water a day. The fleet was still a great one, for of thehundred and fifty ships which had sailed from Corunna, a hundred andtwenty still held together. The weather now turned bitterly cold, withfog and mist, squalls and driving showers; and the vessels, when theyreached the north coast of Scotland, lost sight of each other, and eachstruggled for herself in the tempestuous sea.

  A week later the weather cleared, and on the 9th of August Geoffreylooking round at daybreak saw fifteen other ships in sight. Among thesewere the galleons of Calderon and Ricaldo, the _Rita, San Marcos_, andeleven other vessels. Signals were flying from all of them, but the seawas so high that it was scarce possible to lower a boat. That night itagain blew hard and the fog closed in, and in the morning Geoffreyfound that the ship he was on, and all the others, with the exceptionof that of Calderon, were steering north; the intention of Ricaldo andDe Leyva being to make for the Orkneys and refit there. Calderon hadstood south, and had come upon Sidonia with fifty ships; and these,bearing well away to the west of Ireland, finally succeeded for themost part in reaching Spain, their crews reduced by sickness and wantto a mere shadow of their original strength.

  The cold became bitter as De Leyva's ships made their way towards theOrkneys. The storm was furious, and the sailors, unaccustomed to thecold and weakened by disease and famine, could no longer work theirships, and De Leyva was obliged at last to abandon his intention andmake south. One galleon was driven on the Faroe Islands, a second onthe Orkneys, and a third on the Isle of Mull, where it was attacked bythe natives and burned with almost every one on board. The rest managedto make the west coast of Ireland, and the hope that they would findshelter in Galway Bay, or the mouth of the Shannon, began to spring upin the breasts of the exhausted crews.

  The Irish were their co-religionists and allies, and had only beenwaiting for news of the success of the Armada to rise in arms againstthe English, who had but few troops there. Rumours of disaster hadarrived, and a small frigate had been driven into Tralee Bay. The fearsof the garrison at Tralee Castle overcame their feelings of humanity,and all on board were put to death. Two galleons put into Dingle, andlanding begged for water; but the natives, deciding that the Spanishcause was a lost one, refused to give them a drop, seized the men whohad landed in the boats, and the galleons had to put to sea again.

  Another ship of a thousand tons, _Our Lady of the Rosary_, was driveninto the furious straits between the Blasket Islands and the coast ofKerry. Of her crew of seven hundred, five hundred had died. Before shegot half-way through she struck among the breakers, and all thesurvivors perished save the son of the pilot, who was washed ashorelashed to a plank. Six others who had reached the mouth of the Shannonsent their boats ashore for water; but although there were no Englishthere the Irish feared to supply them, even though the Spaniardsoffered any sum of money for a few casks. One of the ships wasabandoned and the others put to sea, only to be dashed ashore in thesame gale that wrecked _Our Lady of the Rosary_, and o
f all their crewsonly one hundred and fifty men were cast ashore alive. Along the coastof Connemara, Mayo, and Sligo many other ships were wrecked. In almostevery case the crews who reached the shore were at once murdered by thenative savages for the sake of their clothes and jewellery.

  Geoffrey had suffered as much as the rest of the crew on board thegalleon in which he sailed. All were so absorbed by their own sufferingand misery that none paid any attention to the idiot boy in theirmidst. He worked at such work as there was to do: assisted to haul onthe ropes, to throw the dead overboard, and to do what could be donefor the sick and wounded. Like all on board he was reduced almost to askeleton, and was scarce able to stand.

  As the surviving ships passed Galway Bay, one of them, which wasleaking so badly that she could only have been kept afloat a few hoursin any case, entered it, and brought up opposite the town. Don Lewis ofCordova, who commanded, sent a party on shore, believing that inGalway, between which town and Spain there had always been closeconnections, they would be well received. They were, however, at oncetaken prisoners. An attempt was made to get up the anchors again, butthe crew were too feeble to be able to do so, and the natives comingout in their boats, all were taken prisoners and sent on shore. SirRichard Bingham, the governor of Connaught, arrived in a few hours, andat once despatched search parties through Clare and Connemara to bringall Spaniards cast ashore alive to the town, and sent his son to Mayoto fetch down all who landed there. But young Bingham's mission proveduseless; every Spaniard who had landed had been murdered by thenatives, well-nigh three thousand having been slain by the axes andknives of the savages who professed to be their co-religionists.

  Sir Richard Bingham was regarded as a humane man, but he feared theconsequences should the eleven hundred prisoners collected at Galway berestored to health and strength. He had but a handful of troops underhim, and had had the greatest difficulty in keeping down the Irishalone. With eleven hundred Spanish soldiers to aid them the task wouldbe impossible, and accordingly he gave orders that all, with theexception of Don Lewis himself, and three or four other nobles, shouldbe executed. The order was carried out; Don Lewis, with those spared,was sent under an escort to Dublin, but the others being too feeble towalk were killed or died on the way, and Don Lewis himself was the solesurvivor out of the crews of a dozen ships.

  De Leyva, the most popular officer in the Armada, had with him in hisship two hundred and fifty young nobles of the oldest families inSpain. He was twice wrecked. The first time all reached the shore insafety, and were protected by O'Niel, who was virtually the sovereignof the north of Ulster. He treated them kindly for a time. They thentook to sea again, but were finally wrecked off Dunluce, and all onboard save five perished miserably. Over eight thousand Spaniards diedon the Irish coast. Eleven hundred were put to death by Bingham, threethousand murdered by the Irish, the rest drowned; and of the wholeArmada but fifty-four vessels, carrying between nine and ten thousandworn-out men, reached Spain, and of the survivors a large proportionafterwards died from the effects of the sufferings they had endured.