A few hours later a very subdued boy was being rowed across the dark water towards the Revenge. He had begged that Toby should accompany him for he had heard that there was a surgeon aboard Drake’s ship and Frobisher had agreed. The cars were shipped as the little craft drew alongside. As Toby could not climb the rope ladder he was hoisted upon the back of a brawny seaman who carried him up. Paul followed slowly. As he swung himself over the side he came face to face with his father and his heart dropped like a stone.
“Well? What have you to say for yourself?” his father asked sternly. “You deliberately defied me. I bade you stay at home to protect your mother and sister! Did you give no thought to your mother?” he stormed. “She will be frantic with worry!”
“I left her a note,” the boy stammered. Suddenly he found courage. “I could not miss this chance, Father! I could not stay at home and wait like Beth, and I did well! Captain Frobisher said so himself.”
Edward looked at the eager face of his boy and his expression became less angry. The boy looked older, more self-assured in spite of his torn clothes and smoke blackened features.
“Find your brother. He will find you a place to sleep and some food. How long is it since you have eaten?”
“I can't remember. What about Toby?”
“Who is Toby?”
“My friend. He is hurt, his leg was crushed by a beam.”
Edward turned to where the lad lay. “There is a surgeon aboard who will attend to him.”
Paul tugged at his father’s sleeve. “He shared his rations and bedding with me from the first day I joined.”
His father smiled and nodded. “Find Martin. I will find the surgeon myself.”
An hour later Toby was lying wrapped in blankets, his leg having been dressed by the surgeon who had pronounced it just badly bruised. Both boys had ravenously devoured the food that Martin had brought them and sleep threatened to close Toby’s eyes as he listened while Paul related to his brother their experiences.
On the morning of the 25th Howard spotted a galleon that had become separated from her squadron and ordering out his boats was towed into firing range. Three great galleasses immediately came to the galleon's rescue but all four ships suffered from the Ark Royal’s murderous fire.
Paul and Toby were watching the skirmish from the deck of the Revenge when the wind suddenly sprang up. Drake shouted his orders and the squadron sailed into the attack. As on the previous day Frobisher was into shore and was hard pressed, being heavily outnumbered, but at last was towed out of danger. The fighting lasted for six hours. Howard and Drake were on the seaward side and tried to drive the Armada onto the shoals ten miles east of the Isle of Wight but Medina Sidonia was too wise and took advantage of the wind to sail clear and on up the Channel towards Calais. The west going tide had set in and his progress was slow and the English squadrons followed him doggedly.
The 26th July was calm and both fleets sailed slowly onwards towards the French coast. That evening the Lord High Admiral sent for Lord Sheffield, John Hawkins, Martin Frobisher and Lord Thomas Howard and for their gallant courage knighted them upon the deck of the Ark Royal.
Thirteen
The days of the mighty Armada were numbered as the Duke of Medina Sidonia led his fleet on and anchored on the 27th off Calais. He was well aware that he was not in a good position for he was open to attack from Lord Howard and the weather was deteriorating fast. But for the Spaniards there was nowhere left to go.
The Duke realised that it would be impossible for Parma to join him for his forces would be annihilated. The small craft needed to shuttle the men and horses of Parma’s army to the galleons anchored, by virtue of their size, in deeper water, would be blown to bits by the small, swift ships of the English fleet to whom the shallower waters off the Flemish coast presented no problem.
Howard’s squadrons anchored a mile to windward and he sent to Dover for fireships. Next morning he was joined by Lord Henry Seymour with the blockading fleet, comprising fifteen of the Queen’s own ships plus thirty others and the Lord High Admiral decided to force battle. As the fireships had not arrived, eight merchantmen were used. They were packed with anything that would burn and were coated with pitch and gunpowder and at midnight on the 28th their crews sailed them as close as they could on the strong east-going tide. After lashing their helms they took to the boats, throwing blazing torches into the floating, pitch covered merchantmen.
The Armada was riding two anchors to each ship and in close formation and sheer panic ensued as the fireships erupted into blazing infernos within their midst.
The glare from the blazing ships lit up the features of the man the Spaniards called “El Draque” and feared as they feared the devil himself, as he watched with grim satisfaction the chaos which the fireships were causing.
He turned to Edward Allgrave who stood beside him.
“Look at them, running like rabbits from the hounds. The fools are cutting their cables!”
“Aye and are running foul of one another. Look at that!” Edward replied and they watched as one galleon ran aground, her rudder completely wrenched off by the cable of a fleeing galleon.
“Can you see what ship she is?” Drake asked.
“The San Lorenzo, I think.”
“That should put paid to their formation and tomorrow we shall show them what mettle we are made of!”
At first light on the 29th the Spanish fleet was scattered along the coast for miles, its crescent-shaped formation, which had been maintained from the day of its sighting, gone for good. Medina Sidonia desperately tried to re-group and managed to get fifteen of his best ships together but the English, reinforced by a fifth squadron under Seymour, attacked immediately. Lord Howard remaining to make certain of the grounded San Lorenzo.
All was ready aboard the Revenge and determination filled the heart of every man aboard. As the wind filled her sails and the flags of St. George and England streamed in the wind, Drake ordered the drummer to beat his flagship into action. The sound of that drum, carried on the morning air, instilled fear into the hearts of the Spaniards aboard the San Martin for they knew that “El Draque” had singled them out.
Edward stood between his two sons. “Today shall settle the fate of England. Whatever happens, do your best, that is all that can be expected of you.”
Drake’s voice rose above the beating of the drum as he cried.
“For Elizabeth! For England!”
The cheers of his crew were drowned by the first salvo from the San Martin which fell short to starboard and the fight for England’s freedom commenced.
The Spaniards' aim was inaccurate; their galleons slow and cumbersome while the English ships again and again raked them with their deadly, accurate fire. The noise was deafening and smoke filled the air and was so dense that it was almost impossible to see any great distance. The Captains had to bawl their orders above the noise and never in his young life had Paul Allgrave witnessed such appalling carnage as the English ships pounded the towering Spaniards with salvo upon salvo of cannon fire. He had seen men wounded and dying when he had fought with Frobisher, but nothing to compare with this. His father he had not seen for hours and Martin he had seen once, his left arm useless from an ugly wound. He himself had been caught by a flying splinter and the blood had dried and matted on his face though he felt no pain.
Once more they sailed towards the battered galleons, their guns blazing. The San Martin, the Ram, the San Matteo and the San Felipe in turn were blasted yet again. Their rigging was cut, shattered masts lay strewn across their decks. Rudders, yards and bowsprits had been shot away. Their white sails, which had but a few days ago billowed proudly in the wind, hung blackened and in shreds.
He stared in horrified fascination as they fired once more at the reeling San Antonio of Padua, for from her lee scuppers poured a steady stream not of water but of bright, scarlet blood. The life blood of Spain and her empire was being poured into the stormy waters of the English Channel as the B
attle of Gravelines raged.
At noon Lord Howard came up and the English tried to drive the Armada eastwards towards the shoals off the Flemish coast while the Spaniards tried desperately to reach the North Sea. For eight hours the battle raged until in the late afternoon, a fierce storm blew up and the Spaniards ran before it.
The men of the English fleet watched them go and a great cheer rang out aboard the Revenge. With the rain sluicing down their faces men dragged themselves up: some with mortal wounds, all exhausted, their faces blackened and their clothes in rags, to watch in triumph as the broken, battered remnants of the greatest fleet in the world was driven by the north-westerly wind closer to complete destruction upon the shoals.
Edward Allgrave found both his sons and they stood, soaking wet, all three bleeding from their wounds as they watched the Spanish ships.
“They are going to founder!” Martin yelled above the wind.
“No. The wind is changing,” his father replied.
“Look! Look over there!” Paul shouted and they turned to watch as the Santa Maria went down in a foaming, churning sea with the loss of all hands.
The wind changed to southwest and the defeated Armada fled northwards. The had come with such confidence, believing themselves invincible. Certain of blasting the English fleet into oblivion and of driving the red-headed, heretic, bastard from her throne but what was left of that avenging host struggled towards Spain. Many were wrecked on the west coast of Ireland; twelve on the Connaught coast alone and their crews massacred by the barbarous Irish. Lord Howard pursued them as far as the Firth of Forth before firing a final salvo and turning for home.
When he reached Margate with his men half-starved, their clothes in rags and many of them dying from dysentery, he wrote to Elizabeth.
In the desire for victory they did not stay for the spoils of the ships they lamed. Their prize is the safety of England and they have earned the highest honour, for all the world never saw such a force as was theirs!
Fourteen
While the great sea battle raged, England had prayed and waited. Every man ready to defend his home against the Spaniard. There had been no news and Elizabeth had prepared herself to face the worst. Robert Dudley had been appointed commander of the troops at Tilbury and Sir Walter Raleigh had been sent to the West Country to organise the resistance along that coast.
The atmosphere was tense and strained as her women dressed her, fastening the steel corselet over her gown. Lady Nottingham lifted the shining helmet decorated with plumes ready to place upon her head.
“Not yet, it is very heavy!”
“Very well, madam.”
“You may go. I will call you when I need you,” she commanded.
The women left and she sat down to collect her thoughts and to pray for she faced the most dangerous peril of her reign. She turned sharply as the door opened, ready to pounce upon the intruder. A very old woman hobbled in, her eyes as bright as two buttons in her wrinkled face.
“Well, Kat Ashley? Have you come to give me advice?”
Kat shook her head. “There is no advice I can give you, Bess, you must place your trust in God.”
Elizabeth nodded and then her face hardened. “I have sacrificed youth, love and happiness for this land and no Spaniard is going to take that from me.”
“You will fight? You will lead your army into battle?” Kat questioned her.
“If need be. I am reminded of an ancient Queen of this land, Bodicea, Queen of the Icenis who fought the Romans and who burnt the City of London to the ground. The Spaniards will have to kill every man, woman and child before they can call this land theirs.”
Kat nodded and taking the still elegant hand, kissed it.
“God go with you, Bess!”
“Have no fear, Kat. King Philip will never set foot upon these shores!”
“What happened to that heathen Queen, Bod… Bodicea?” Kat asked her sharply as she reached the door.
Elizabeth turned. “She took her own life rather than be taken prisoner,” she said bluntly as she left to review her troops.
As the lines of men at Tilbury caught sight of their Queen, tall and regal as she rode the great, white destrier with the sun gleaming upon her armour, a great cheer arose. She rode slowly down the ranks with the Earl of Leicester at her side. Her fiery head held high and a Marshall’s baton held in her gauntleted hand.
“God Save Your Grace! God Bless Good Queen Bess!” the men cried.
She drew rein and held up her hand for silence.
“My loving people, we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery. But I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let Tyrants fear! I have always so behaved myself that under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you as you see, resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all. To lay down for my God and for my kingdom and for my people my honour and my blood even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a King and of a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain or any Prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms. I myself will be your general, judge and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.”
Wild cheers drowned her words. She had vowed to be their general and to lead them into battle. Catholic, Protestant, Puritan and Jew, they would follow her to the ends of the earth, for to a man they loved her and would willingly lay down their lives for her, for she was the embodiment of England—and above all other considerations they were all Englishmen.
* * *
On the morning of the 30th July, 1588 the great Bells of St. Paul’s rang out and within seconds the bells of every church in London took up their message. The streets and lanes echoed to their sound as they announced to the world that England was saved. The invincible Armada had been defeated.
Jane Allgrave and her daughter clung together, weeping for joy.
“Oh, Beth. Thank God! Thank God!” Jane cried.
“They will soon be home, Mother. It is all over!”
“But we still do not know if they will all come home, Beth.”
“They will. I know they will!”
“There will be many who will not,” her mother answered sadly. “England will be a poorer place without those who have given their lives to give us freedom.”
Beth wiped the tears from her mother’s cheeks. “They will come home. I know it in my heart.”
The bells continued to peal and as her subjects danced and embraced each other in the streets Elizabeth Tudor rose from her knees, her prayers of thanks completed. Her cheeks were wet with tears but for her there were no loving hands to wipe them away and in the midst of her triumph she was the loneliest person in that jubilant city.
As Jane Allgrave was joyfully reunited with her husband and sons and England was rejoicing in its great victory, fate dealt Elizabeth a cruel blow for on his way to Kenilworth at Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester died of a fever.
She was stunned and grieved. Robin was dead. Robin whom she had once loved passionately and whom she had continued to love with a deep warmth. She wept bitterly for what might have been when once, long ago, he had begged her to marry him. She was fifty-five and loneliness and old age were creeping steadily upon her and she could understand now with less bitterness, why her father had sought to stave off those two destroying forces with a young wife who in the end had helped to destroy him—as he had destroyed her own mother.
It was a long time since she had thought of Anne, but now she wondered whether or not Anne had been lucky for she had died young and still fresh. She had been spared the loneliness and the slow destruction of her beauty while she, Elizabeth, must li
ve on, lonely now, her once proud and elegant form being mercilessly eroded by time.
To add to her acute depression she was at her wits end to find the money to pay off and send home the gallant defenders of her realm. The losses in battle against the Armada had been slight—only one hundred dead and not one ship lost—but sickness, due to lack of food and water, was decimating the ranks of her sailors. Thousands were dying, some at sea; others after reaching port only to find that the ports were so overcrowded with seriously ill men that they lay dying in the streets with not even a blanket to cover themselves. These men who had faced and fought the greatest force the world had ever seen were being rewarded with a pauper’s death. In her hour of triumph—this was England’s shame!
The 24th November, 1588 was a day which was remembered by all Englishmen with a fierce national pride for that day was set aside to celebrate the Nation’s deliverance.
It was a clear, bright day. There had been a heavy frost the night before and the windows and eves of the houses sparkled in the pale sunlight, turning the whole city into a shimmering, fairy-tale picture. Elizabeth set out for St. Paul’s attended by the members of her Privy Council, her judges and bishops and her courtiers. Their rich and colourful clothes contrasting sharply with the grey stone and black and white background of the buildings. She was seated in a magnificent chariot drawn by two white horses. Above the gilded chariot was a canopy in the form of the Crown Imperial. At her feet were two low pillars. One bearing the golden lion of England and the other the red dragon of Wales. Her ladies rode behind her, flanked on either side by the foot guards in bright scarlet uniforms, their halberds gleaming and flashing in the sunlight.
Elizabeth forgot her loneliness for a while for beside her rode her young Master of Horse, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. She remembered as if from another world, how she had ridden in her triumphal procession with another Robert beside her but he was now cold in his grave and this young Robert, Leicester’s step-son, had brought back a little of the warmth and laughter of her youth. She smiled at him but her heart sighed. He was so young and so handsome.
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