With the Lion, Rainbow, Dreadnought, Nonpareil, Mary Rose, Swiftsure and a dozen armed merchantmen close behind, Raleigh’s Warspite brazenly braved fierce gunfire from cannons on the port’s fortifications. Ever the showman, Raleigh declined to waste ammunition on the battlements, instead ordering trumpeters to blow blasts as his defiant response.
The first Warspite leads the English and Dutch naval assault on Cadiz. Specially commissioned painting by Dennis C. Andrews.
Raleigh later wrote that ‘the volleys of cannon and culvern came as thick as if it had been a skirmish of musketeres.’
Warspite was badly damaged but still brushed off these annoyances, forcing the Spanish vessels to run before her.
Meanwhile Essex, frightened Raleigh would steal all the glory, pushed Repulse through the mêlée until she was also at the forefront of the action.
The Warspite was at this point pummelling the Saint Philip, her gun crews urged on by an exultant Raleigh, his blood lust for revenge knowing no bounds against this hated vessel. But he could see the Warspite would herself come to grief before the Spaniard was finished off unless he could send across boarders. But he had no small boats for his men to use in this endeavour. Clambering down into a skiff, he dodged through the hellfire to the nearest English man-of-war which was the Repulse.
Hatred of the Spanish overwhelmed any qualms Raleigh might have felt about begging his bitter rival for help. Calling up he asked for the loan of some small boats and, to his surprise, Essex eagerly agreed to his request. However, Raleigh need not have bothered for, realizing they were doomed anyway, the crew of the Saint Philip ran her aground and set fire to her.
Raleigh’s triumph was sealed when he captured the Saint Andrew but he was wounded in the leg and would be lame for the rest of his life.
After several hours of fighting, and despite his wound, Raleigh was ready to push on deeper into the massive harbour, for he knew the treasure ships were trapped within. But his energetic pleas for the English force to waste no time in capturing them were ignored in favour of looting Cadiz. The merchants who owned the heavily laden treasure ships offered to pay the English a large sum to let the vessels leave. This was turned down by Effingham and Essex yet Raleigh and the Warspite were still not unleashed. The Spaniards then set light to the galleons, rather than let them fall into the hands of the English, with more than three million pounds worth of treasure going up in smoke.
The English troops occupied Cadiz for a fortnight and treated the town’s occupants with humanity despite looting and destroying its buildings, causing twenty million ducats worth of mayhem. Two dozen major Spanish vessels were destroyed and over 1,000 cannon and other weapons captured. Raleigh advised sailing for Plymouth, as the English vessels were by then in no fit state for lengthy adventures in which they might encounter strong Spanish naval forces. Effingham agreed.
Ultimately the Queen’s coffers would receive less than £10,000 in prize money from the Cadiz raid. This was a grave disappointment, particularly in light of the millions lost in the destroyed treasure ships. However some are happy to view the Cadiz raid in less dismal light.
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy describes the raid as: ‘One of the most efficient acts of war carried out by any Tudor government.’
Hugh Ross Williamson went even further in his book Sir Walter Raleigh, hailing the raid led by the first Warspite as an ‘Elizabethan Trafalgar’ which secured English naval supremacy and the decline of Spain.
The year after Cadiz, Raleigh was once more at the helm of Warspite, embarking on another expedition with Essex. This time the aim was to destroy Spanish warships at Ferrol, for fear they would form another Armada. The English also intended capturing treasure ships off the Azores to deny the Spaniards war-fighting funds. Known as ‘The Islands Voyage’, it failed miserably.
Setting sail from Plymouth in July 1597, under the command of Essex, bad weather caused disarray in the English force. The storm was ‘so shattering that the bulkheads of the Warspite were broken and her cookroom smashed.’2
Raleigh returned to Plymouth and Essex sought shelter in Falmouth. He made his way to Plymouth and boarded the Warspite to discuss an alternative course of action with his deputy. The attack on Ferrol was abandoned and the fleet headed for the Azores. Their intention was to capture one of the islands – Fayal – to use as a base while they waited for a treasure fleet from the West Indies to appear. But, while Raleigh was delayed at another island in the Azores by some essential maintenance work on Warspite, which had suffered a damaged mainyard, and repairs to other members of his squadron, Essex went haring off after prize ships. Arriving at Fayal expecting to discover Essex waiting for him to mount an invasion, Raleigh found himself alone. Unable to resist the challenge, he went ashore with 500 of his sailors and took the island.
Essex eventually reappeared and was infuriated by Raleigh’s fait accompli. All the old enmities erupted and Essex initially threatened to have Raleigh court-martialled and beheaded for gross insubordination.
While all this was going on, the Spanish treasure fleet slipped by and reached a port in the Azores too strongly defended for the English to risk attacking.
Realizing that this disaster was ultimately his fault, Essex thought better of prosecuting Raleigh.
Demoralized, the English headed for home, only to discover, on returning to Plymouth, that the Armada they had failed to destroy at Ferrol was off the Lizard.
In port aboard Warspite, Raleigh despaired of mounting any kind of realistic defence of the West Country. Their crews exhausted and dispirited, the English warships were also desperately in need of refitting.
Luckily the weather intervened and scattered the Spanish Armada of 1597, saving England once more. In the fallout from this farce, Raleigh was relieved of his naval command. Essex revived his attempt to have him court-martialled and executed, arousing disapproval at Court for such an unjustified course of action.
Failure in missions to pacify Ireland soon alienated Essex from the Queen’s favours. Meanwhile Raleigh revived his place at Court and was again one of the Queen’s closest advisors. Embittered, Essex let his hatred of Raleigh get the better of him and in 1601 attempted to stage a rebellion against the Queen which would also rid him, finally, of his rival. He paid for it with his head. But Essex would have his revenge, for when his old friend James I succeeded Elizabeth, he had Raleigh executed for treason.
Following the Islands Voyage, Warspite was delegated to Channel Guard duties, but in 1601 took part in the destruction of a Spanish fleet off Kinsale in Ireland.
Under James I the English navy as a whole underwent a period of severe recession and inactivity and it wasn’t until 1627 that Warspite saw action again, taking part in an assault on La Rochelle. This venture was launched in support of the Huguenot cause during renewed conflict with Spain and France. The expedition was a disaster.
By the mid-1630s, the first Warspite had been reduced to a hulk and was being used for harbour duties. She was disposed of in 1649.
Launched on the Thames at Blackwall in 1666, the year of both the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London, the next HMS Warspite displaced 899 tons and carried sixty-four guns. She was part of a revival in the English navy brought about by the Restoration which saw Charles II ascending the throne.
The second HMS Warspite (also spelt Warspight) could carry six months’ supplies, a great step forward in English warship design, enabling extended deployment to the expanding colonies.
Initially the second Warspite’s enemies would be the Dutch in wars between England and Holland of the 1660s and 1670s. By the 1690s, the Warspite was sailing alongside Netherlands vessels and at war with the French and Spanish. In the year of her launch she took part in the victory over De Ruyter’s Dutch fleet at Orfordness (the Battle of St James Day).
Warspite was present at Southwold Bay (also known as Sole Bay) when a combined British and French fleet suffered heavy casualties and the loss of their flagshi
ps. The Dutch withdrew to the Scheldt and attempts to lure them out resulted in the battle off Schooneveld in 1673, during which Warspite lost her captain. In August of the same year she took part in the Battle of Texel where there was no decisive result despite heavy fighting.
In 1692 Warspite was to the fore in the Battle of Barfleur and the subsequent Battle of La Hogue. By this time the English were allied with the Dutch. The Anglo-Dutch aim was to prevent an invasion of England by an army under the command of the exiled King James II who had been been replaced by Holland’s William of Orange in 1688.
In the period 1694-95 Warspite served in the Mediterranean and in 1697 entered a five year refit and rebuild at Rotherhithe which increased her displacement to 952 tons and her guns to seventy.
During 1702-03, with the start of the War of the Spanish Succession, Warspite was engaged in small actions off the Spanish coast, capturing the French vessel Hasard. The following year, the second Warspite achieved fame by taking part in the capture of Gibraltar under the command of Admiral Rooke. She was retained in those waters and played a distinguished part in the Battle of Velez Malaga when an Anglo-Dutch fleet clashed with a Franco-Spanish force intending to re-take Gibraltar. Warspite sustained severe damage and, while no ships were sunk on either side, the British suffered nearly 700 dead and almost 2,000 wounded.
In 1705 the French again tried to capture Gibraltar and were once more repulsed, with Warspite weighing into action during the resulting Battle of Marbella. She returned home from the Mediterranean in 1709 and, after subsequent service on the Newfoundland Station, the second Warspite was placed in reserve.
Renamed Edinburgh in 1715, she was finally broken up in 1771.
A seventy-four gunner of 1,850 tons displacement, the third HMS Warspite was launched in 1758 at Deptford and in 1759 fought in the Battle of Lagos (off Portugal) in defence of Gibraltar. Later in the same year she participated in the Battle of Quiberon Bay, under Hawke’s flag, helping to destroy a French invasion force bound for Ireland by annihilating the fleet carrying the troops.
The third Warspite in the thick of the action at Quiberon Bay. Specially commissioned painting by Dennis C. Andrews.
In 1783 Warspite was paid off into reserve at Plymouth, but the American War of Independence led to her being reactivated and pressed into service as a hospital ship. However, by 1784 she had been downgraded to a floating naval barracks and in 1800 was renamed Arundel.
Built at Chatham and launched in 1807, the fourth Warspite had a displacement of 1,890 tons and carried seventy-four guns. Her first commanding officer was the renowned Captain Henry Blackwood, who had sailed in support of Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar and was chief mourner at his funeral. Under Blackwood she saw service in the Baltic, the English Channel and Mediterranean. Blackwood was a forceful captain and enriched himself with frequent pursuit of prize ships, displaying tenacity which frightened many in his own navy. In The Prizes of War, Richard Hill relates that in 1810 the mistress of the Prince Regent was heard to describe Blackwood as ‘the most severe not to say tyrannical officer in the Service’ who, apparently, flogged his midshipmen. As Hill points out, this was of particular concern to the lady as her son was a young officer aboard Warspite at the time she made these remarks. No matter to the Royal Navy – Blackwood was an outstanding captain.
He had come to Warspite after his previous command – HMS Ajax – was destroyed by fire, allegedly set ablaze by a drunken steward. Blackwood very nearly didn’t survive this calamity, coming close to going down with the ship. He was subjected to a court martial but acquitted with honour. A proud and determined individual, he then set his eye on a governorship in the West Indies but was instead offered, and refused, the job of Pay Commissioner on the Navy Board. The result of all this was another sea command and six years as captain of HMS Warspite.
Between 1807 and 1810 the fourth Warspite played a supporting role to Wellington’s army in the Peninsular War, taking up station off the coast of Spain and Portugal. Thereafter she was involved in the blockade of the French fleet at Toulon. In 1812 she helped to capture American vessels carrying tobacco, silks and brandy to France.
Two years later, without Blackwood, she was in North American waters and took troops up the St Lawrence to Quebec during the war with America, becoming the largest vessel to sail that far up the Canadian river. In the year of Waterloo, 1815, she was paid off, but recommissioned two years later, rebuilt and enlarged to carry seventy-six guns.
Until 1832 Warspite served mainly in the East Indies, South America and Mediterranean. However, she did take time out to circumnavigate the world – the first line of battle ship to do so.
In 1833 she was paid off at Portsmouth and seven years later reduced to a fifty gun frigate and dispatched to the Mediterranean to conduct anti-piracy patrols. Again paid off in 1846, she was loaned to the Marine Society as a training ship for boy sailors, but was destroyed by fire in 1876 while at Woolwich.
Following the destruction of the fourth HMS Warspite it was decided to rename HMS Conqueror in her honour. This fifth Warspite was subsequently given as a replacement to the Marine Society. She survived until 1918 as a training ship when, like her immediate predecessor, she was also destroyed by fire.
A new frontline warship called HMS Warspite had in the meantime joined the fleet. Launched at Chatham in 1884, this sixth vessel to carry the name was considered an armoured cruiser and had a displacement of 8,400 tons, with 800 hp steam engines enabling her to reach seventeen knots. The first warship to be lit by electricity, she carried four 9.2-inch guns as her main weapons and ten 6-inch guns as secondary armament.
In 1888-89 she was involved in sea trials and exercises in home waters. In 1890 she became flagship of the Pacific Station before transferring to Queenstown where, again, she fulfilled flagship duties. Returning to the Pacific Station in 1899, she ended her career in 1902 and three years later was sold for scrapping.
And so ended the life of the immediate predecessor to the super dreadnought which is the main subject of this book.
While all the Warspites were kin, the relationship between the first and the seventh was particularly special.
Aside from being built at the first Warspite’s home port of Plymouth, the battleship of 1913 was to embody the Elizabethan fighting spirit better than any other Warspite since Raleigh’s flagship. She served in an era when England was again in peril from powerful armadas, this time sailing forth from Germany.
The seventh Warspite was created by two men who aroused love or hate but never indifference. They were, like Raleigh and Essex, comrades-in-arms who ultimately fell out, in their case amid bitter recriminations over the conduct of the Dardanelles campaign of 1915.
Admiral John Fisher. Taylor Library.
We have already encountered one of Warspite’s fathers – Winston Churchill. The other was the visionary Admiral John Fisher whose brutal reformation of the Royal Navy at the beginning of the twentieth century created the conditions which gave birth to Warspite and her sisters. Rising to First Sea Lord in 1904, aged sixty-three, he ‘did more than any single officer to drag the Royal Navy out of its nineteenth-century sloth, inefficiency, and drowsiness...’3
A great fan of all things revolutionary when it came to naval architecture, Fisher scrapped vast numbers of obsolete Royal Navy ships and pushed forward the development of submarines, the concept of the ‘all-big-gun’ battleship (the turbine driven HMS Dreadnought of 1906), construction of battlecruisers, the use of oil fuel and initiated construction of super dreadnoughts.
Fisher also reorientated the British fleet towards combating the growing German threat, in the process devastating the Mediterranean Fleet, which he had commanded from 1899 to 1902, in order to bring vessels back to Britain.
Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty at the age of thirty-seven. Taylor Library.
HMS Dreadnought, the revolutionary battleship which paved the way for the construction of super dreadnoughts of the Queen E
lizabeth Class. Goodman Collection.
When thirty-seven-year-old Winston Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in late 1911, he was not to serve alongside Fisher as First Sea Lord, for the Admiral had resigned the previous year and soon departed for a sunny retirement in the Mediterranean.
However, the two men had been friends for some time. Before, and during, Churchill’s early years as First Lord, Fisher pushed all manner of revolutionary ideas in correspondence, including his proposals for even bigger, faster battleships.
Notes
1 Henrietta Buckmaster, Sir Walter Raleigh
2 Ibid
3 Richard Hough, The Great War at Sea.
Chapter Two
BIRTH OF A SUPER DREADNOUGHT
Taking the Gamble
Suggesting a ruling monarch should authorize the naming of a warship in his very own Royal Navy after a man who had arranged the beheading of a previous king, was not perhaps the most subtle move. But here it was in black and white from the First Lord of the Admiralty... again!
King George V had already asked his Private Secretary to write to Winston Churchill and make it abundantly clear, when the Iron Duke Class was being built, that under no circumstances would a battleship be christened His Majesty’s Ship Oliver Cromwell.
Now, in October 1912, Churchill had come back with the same suggestion, pointing out that Oliver Cromwell had done much to establish the Navy and ensure its rise to supremacy.
A new super dreadnought class was being laid down and, aside from Cromwell, Churchill was putting forward the names Queen Elizabeth, King Henry V and King Richard I.
Warspite Page 2
