Both sides had fired a further four thousand rounds during the day’s fighting and Howard, like his enemy, was still short of gunpowder and shot.
For as much as our powder and shot was well wasted [used], the lord admiral thought it was not good in policy to assail them any more until their coming near unto Dover, where he should find the fleet under . . . Lord Henry Seymour and Sir William Wynter, whereby our fleet should be much strengthened and in the meantime, better store of munition might be provided from the shore.
Walsingham, in response, ordered ‘twenty-three last [to be] sent unto him with a proportion of bullet accordingly’.58
That day the Privy Council also wrote to Howard promising more musketeers:
Her highness, being very careful that your lordship be supplied with all the provisions that may be had, has [ordered] that in the county of Kent, a good number of the best and choicest shot of the trained bands . . . should be forthwith sent to the seaside . . . that they may be brought to you to double man the ships that are both with your lordship and the Lord Henry Seymour.59
A battle at close quarters was now a priority in Howard’s tactical plan.
Further east in the Channel, Seymour was agitated about the weakness of his squadron. He told the Privy Council: ‘I have besides to signify to your Lordships that our fleet being from the first promised to be seventy-eight sail, there was never yet when the same was [at] most thirty-six and now we have not above twenty.’ Of these, just eight were queen’s ships, apart from pinnaces. ‘I am driven to write this much because in my former letters, your lordships, having many matters, do forget them.’60 Eight more armed merchantmen, hired in London, were sent ‘into the narrow seas’ under the command of Nicholas Gorges: Susan Anne Parnell, Solomon, George Bonaventure, Anne Frances, Vineyard, Violet, Samuel and Jane Bonaventure.
Seymour was right to be concerned; Sir Edward Norris reported from Ostend that Parma ‘is looked for at Dunkirk now this full moon to see the shipping and the heights of the water. All the cavalry that they can possibly make do march towards Dunkirk. The voyage [to] England now is spoken more assuredly than ever.’61
In London, the incarcerated Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, in his room in the Tower, allegedly secretly celebrated Masses for the success of the Armada. Information about these services came from John Snowden, the other Englishman captured in the Rosario, who sought to save himself from a horrible traitor’s death on the Tyburn scaffold. He filched a missal and sent it to Walsingham as proof of his changed loyalties. William Bennet, the old priest who purportedly said the Masses, was moved to another gaol, the Counter in Wood Street (one of the sheriff’s prisons in the City of London), and questioned there. His confession, ‘written with his own hand’ but hardly freely given, was damning:
The Earl of Arundel [had] said: ‘Let us pray now, for we have more need to pray now than at any time. If it pleases God, the Catholic faith shall flourish. Now is the time at hand of our delivery.’
Moreover, the earl said that he would make me dean [of St Paul’s Cathedral] if the Catholic enterprise took hold.
I call to mind that when the said earl [heard] of the discovery of the Spanish fleet, he desired me in the presence of Sir Thomas Gerard62 to say Mass of the Holy Ghost that it would please God to send them good success.
So I said Mass to his lordship and he did help me say the same. At which Mass, Sir Thomas Gerard and Hammond,63 servant unto the earl, were present.64
A confession was also extracted from Gerard who admitted:
[the earl] told us that the Spanish fleet was seen in the narrow seas, like unto a huge forest [of masts] and our fleet was not able to deal with them . . .
The queen and the council were greatly afraid of their approach and then [he] sorrowfully said: ‘God save my brother Thomas [who had volunteered to serve in the English fleet] . . . and I hope,’ said the earl, ‘ere long . . . to say Mass openly and to see the Catholic faith flourish again.’
Arundel had also asked the other priests imprisoned in the Tower to pray ‘for the advance of the Catholic enterprise all the twenty-four hours of the day’.65
When the earl was questioned on these allegations, Lord Hunsdon, one of his interrogators, was enraged by his calmness and composure, calling him a ‘beast and traitor and said rather than he should not be hanged within four days, that he himself would hang him’. Arundel’s impeachment for high treason was unavoidable.66
Not all members of the Catholic nobility were so militant in their faith. A prominent papist, the sixty-two-year-old Anthony Browne, First Viscount Montague, had been thrown off the Privy Council on Elizabeth’s accession and removed as lieutenant of Sussex in 1585 because of the invasion threat. Now one of his brothers was serving with the Armada. But on 2 August, Browne, having heard of the firing of the beacon on Portsdown Hill above Portsmouth, volunteered himself and his retainers in Elizabeth’s defence, complaining that he ‘had not received letters as others have done for attendance of her majesty’s person’.67 His willingness to serve against the Spanish was an enormous propaganda coup for the English government.
Back in the Channel, Friday 5 August, coasters replenished Howard with munitions, as both fleets lay becalmed off the Sussex coast and undertook emergency repairs. That evening, as the wind freshened, the lord admiral summoned another council of war and it was decided not to fight the Armada again until they reached the Dover Straits. Howard took advantage of the occasion to exercise his prerogative as a commander and knighted Hawkins, Frobisher, Lord Thomas Howard, Lord Sheffield and the eighty-year-old captain of Dreadnought, George Beeston.
The wind continued to increase during the night and, with more speed, the Armada sighted the French coast at ten o’clock that Saturday morning. Medina Sidonia’s pilots had cautioned him to anchor in the Calais Roads if he did not want to be swept into the North Sea by the strong currents. Accordingly, at about four o’clock that afternoon, the Spanish fleet dropped anchor 4 miles (6.44 km) off the French port of Calais and 24 miles (38.62 km) along the coast from Parma’s nearest embarkation port of Dunkirk. Howard’s shadowing English fleet anchored in Whitsand Bay, just outside cannon range, and Seymour’s thirty-five ships arrived a few hours later. To leeward lay shallow waters full of sandbanks, known as the ‘banks of Flanders’, which had been made still more perilous by the Dutch deliberately removing the buoys and navigation marks.68
Although the French were officially neutral, boats were seen going back and forth between the San Martin and Calais castle, headquarters of the town’s governor, de Gourdan. He had earlier lost a leg fighting the English so it was no surprise that Medina Sidonia’s envoy, a Captain Heredia, returned with ‘friendly assurances and promises of service’. The captain-general wrote to Parma, announcing his arrival off Calais but not hiding his exasperation at the continuing silence from Flanders.
I have constantly written . . . giving you information as to my whereabouts with the Armada and not only have I received no reply to my letters but no acknowledgement of their receipt . . .
I am extremely anxious at this as [you] may imagine and to free myself of the doubt as to any of the messengers have reached you safely, I am now despatching this flyboat.
The enemy remained on his flank and was ‘able to bombard me, whilst I am not in a position to do him much harm’. Forty or fifty small ships from Parma’s fleet were needed to augment the Armada’s defences in such shallow waters. When he finally sailed ‘we can go together and take some port where this Armada may enter in safety’.69
Reports of the Spanish fleet’s progress had not yet reached Flanders, judging by the reaction of the English negotiators at the Bourbourg peace talks. At three o’clock that afternoon, the English delegation received news of the first engagement off Plymouth six days before. They promptly packed their baggage and departed after making a voluble protest.70 Parma, in ignorance of the news, initially believed this was merely a negotiating ploy. ‘My efforts to induce them to continue the n
egotiations, notwithstanding the presence of the Armada, were unavailing,’ he told the king.71
Medina Sidonia at last received a reply from Parma at dawn the following day. Don Rodrigo Tello’s pinnace was fired upon by some of the Armada ships, who mistakenly believed it an English vessel, but after showing its colours, it delivered its message, which had been written three days before. Its contents must have stunned Medina Sidonia into dumbfounded silence.
Parma was not ready to sail. He had not even embarked ‘a barrel of beer, still less a soldier’. He would not be able to join forces with the Armada until the following Friday, 12 August.
Worse, a subsequent message warned that embarkation could take fifteen days.72
The delays were spawned by Parma’s attempts to hoodwink the Dutch, who were watching his every movement. His troops were held back from the embarkation ports to fool them into believing his plan was to invade Holland or Zeeland. To create uncertainty about his port of embarkation, the invasion fleet was split between Sluis, Dunkirk, Nieuport and Antwerp, where there were seventy ships, including Parma’s flagship and a large oared galley, which had been built on site. Pioneers had excavated a new canal, ten yards (9.14 metres) wide, to take the flat-bottomed barges from Sluis to Nieuport. One hundred and seventy-three barges were at Nieuport, together with seven armed merchantmen, which would join almost one hundred transport vessels at Dunkirk for the crossing.73 Parma had 15,300 men waiting at Dunkirk and a further 5,000 at Nieuport, with other units moving towards the harbours.
In a dispatch to Philip, Parma said his boats were
in a proper condition for the task they have to effect, namely to take the men across, although we have not so many seamen as we ought to have . . .
The boats are so small that it is impossible to keep the troops on board for long. There is no room to turn round and they would certainly fall ill, rot and die.
The putting of the men on board of these low, small boats is done in a very short time and I am confident there will be no shortcoming in your majesty’s service.
It grieved him to learn of Medina Sidonia’s position ‘without a place of safety in case of necessity, whilst the winds that have prevailed for so long still continue. The wind will prevent our boats coming out, even if the sea were clear of the enemy’s ships. But I trust in God that He will aid us in everything and allow us shortly to send your majesty the good news we wish for.’74
The next day, Sunday 7 August, while fresh water and food were being loaded into his ships (and some of his crews seized the opportunity to desert), Medina Sidonia sent his inspector general, Don Jorge Manrique, to Parma to explain his predicament. His current position was dangerous
in consequence of the lack of shelter and the strong currents which will force me to clear away at the least sign of bad weather. I therefore beg you to hasten your coming out before the spring tides end. The general opinion is that it will be inadvisable for the Armada to go beyond this place.
Yet, he could not stay much longer anchored off Calais and it was ‘impossible to continue cruising’ as the size of the Spanish ships, ‘cause [them] to be always to the leeward of the enemy . . . It is impossible to do any damage to him, hard as we may try.’ Later, Don Jorge became involved in a fierce quarrel with Parma over his lack of readiness and the general ‘was only restrained from laying violent hands’ on him by those around him.75
Nearly 2,500 yards (2,286 metres) away, Howard sat discussing future tactics with his commanders in the stern cabin of Ark Royal. The pressing need remained disrupting and dispersing the densely packed Armada, so they could be picked off, ship by ship, by the now numerically stronger English fleet. Furthermore, some enemy ships could founder on the shoals immediately to the north.
The effective answer was fireships. Local conditions favoured such an attack: that night fortuitous spring tides and a freshening westerly breeze would ensure the blazing vessels were swept into the heart of the Armada, riding helplessly at anchor. The stratagem was a powerful weapon of destruction but also a potent means of attacking enemy morale. The Spanish remembered all too well the ‘hell-burners of Antwerp’ during their siege of the Dutch city in April 1585 when the Italian Fedrigo Giambelli had loaded vessels with explosives and launched them against a Spanish pontoon bridge, killing over eight hundred of their troops and flinging wreckage over more than a square mile (259 hectares). The Spanish knew that Giambelli was in England but they were not aware he was only occupied in building an ineffective defensive boom across the Thames.
A pinnace was dispatched to Dover, where Walsingham had ordered fireships to be made ready. But these would not arrive in time to exploit the favourable wind and tide, so Howard ordered eight vessels from his fleet, all displacing between 90 and 200 tons, to be converted. Drake and Hawkins immediately volunteered two of their own ships, the Thomas Drake and the Barque Bond respectively. The remainder, Henry White’s Barque Talbot, William Hart’s Hope Hawkins, the Bear Yonge, Elizabeth of Lowestoft and another vessel, only identified as ‘Cure’s Ship’, were all armed merchantmen, chartered for the campaign. The final designated fireship was a volunteer, the Angel of Southampton. They were anchored in the midst of the fleet to hide the preparations and work began packing them with pitch, rags and old timber as combustibles and the masts and rigging were painted with tar.
Medina Sidonia had recognised the danger and during the afternoon he stationed a screen of pinnaces outside his perimeter, equipped with grappling irons, to tow off any attacking fireships. In the event of such an attack, he ordered his fleet to slip their anchors and stand out to sea while the fireships harmlessly burnt out.
That night Parma began to embark his men on the barges in Dunkirk and Nieuport.76
Off Calais, Medina Sidonia saw lights moving up and down the lines of English ships and, worried what the edemoniada gente – the ‘infernal devils’ – might be up to, ordered a sharp lookout on his ships.
The tide turned at eleven o’clock. The English launched their attack soon after midnight, double-shotting the fireships’ saker cannon (to be set off by the heat of the blaze), to increase panic in the Armada. The ships were commanded by a Devon man, Captain John Young (of the Bear Yonge), with the Cornish Captain Prouse as his deputy. They and their skeleton volunteer crews steered the ships in a perfect line abreast towards their target and with about fifteen minutes before the first Spanish ship was reached, lit the fires and then escaped in five boats towed behind the vessels. Because of the shortage of gunpowder, there were no explosives on board.
Two fireships, well ablaze, with fountains of sparks flying up against the moonless sky, were successfully grappled by Medina Sidonia’s pinnaces and towed into the shallows but six came on, driven by the strong westerly wind, their guns firing roundshot in the blood-red heat. The hoped-for terror spread like a deadly contagion among the Spanish ships.
Vice-Admiral Sir William Wynter, in Vanguard, watched the attack with great gratification:
This matter did put such terror among the Spanish [fleet] that they were fain to let slip their cables and anchors and did work, as it appear, great mischief among them by reason of the suddenness of it. We might perceive that there were two great fires more than ours and far greater and huger than any of our vessels that we fired could make.77
Calderón was woken by the shouts of alarm:
The enemy set adrift, with their sails set and the tide in their favour, eight ships with artificial machines on board which came towards us all in flames, burning furiously in the bows, with the mainsails and foresails set and the rudders lashed. [A] galle[ass] which was near the duke’s flagship, fired a shot warning [to] our ships to avoid them and the duke ordered our cables cut, the Armada then sailing in a northerly direction.78
In fact, it was Diego Flores de Valdés, panic-stricken like many in the Armada, who ordered the cables to be cut.
Medina Sidonia saw the six ships penetrating his defensive screen and, fearing that the fireships ‘might con
tain fire machines or mines’ ordered the San Martin to let go her anchor cables. He had sent the Prince of Asculi79 out in a felucca to ensure that the ships had buoyed their anchors and, with an extraordinary sense of bad timing, to summon his captains to a council of war. Recalde, in San Juan was having none of that. He shouted down that ‘this was no time for him to leave his ship and [anyway] his advice counted for nothing’. The prince called back that ‘his vote did not count’ either.80
One after the other, the Armada ships ran before the wind, scattering in Calais Roads in a confused mêlée, some swept northwards by the current towards the sandbanks off the Flemish coast.
Moncada’s flagship San Lorenzo had been tardy in cutting her anchor and once under way, collided with her sister galleass Girona before crashing her stern into the Rata Encoronada. Moncada’s poop deck was smashed and his rudder gear broken by becoming entangled in the anchor cable of the Neapolitan, leaving him with no steering. As the fireships sailed nearer, the soldiers on board escaped by climbing ropes thrown over the side of the Rata. The San Lorenzo’s convict oarsmen ‘began to cry out pitifully and to hammer at their chains and fetters in the hope of escaping by jumping in the sea, preferring to die by water than by fire’.81 Moncada tried ineffectively to repair his rudder and dismissed offers by two French pinnaces to take him in tow. Perhaps their price was too high.
The galleass squadron commander eventually paid a higher one. His drifting ship grounded on a sandbank just off the mouth of Calais harbour and was left marooned in the heavy surf. Her deck heeled over at an increasing angle to landward as the tide fell with her port battery pointing skywards. The oars were a tangled mess. Howard sent a hundred-strong boarding party in eleven ship’s boats and a pinnace to capture her, and a sharp fight ensued. The Italian sailors and artillerymen were the first to flee ashore and fewer than fifty crew ‘stood by the captain to defend the ship’. Moncada fell, a bullet between the eyes, in fierce hand-to-hand fighting with needle-sharp half-pikes, swords and pistols. The Margaret and John, always on a quest for plunder, joined the assault to capture the galleass, running aground in her eagerness to be in at the kill.
The Spanish Armada Page 21
