by Neil Hanson
Reports from English spies in Spain, Lisbon and The Netherlands confirmed that the Armada was about to be launched against England, but though most of the Queen’s ships lay idle at their moorings throughout the winter, unarmed, unprovisioned, unrigged and carrying only skeleton crews, their apparent lack of readiness was a little misleading. When Walsingham warned Elizabeth in December 1587 that Santa Cruz might sail with the Armada even before Christmas, the fleet and most of the armed merchantmen were crewed, provisioned, armed and ready to put to sea within a fortnight. After contradictory reports were received, most of the ships were stood down again and rode at anchor in the Medway or Plymouth, where “the harbour is badly defended at present, as the men have been landed to save the victual in the ships.” Only four galleons and a few pinnaces maintained a patrol off the coast of Flanders. The crews of the other ships were once more reduced to a minimum, saving the Queen, by Burghley’s calculations, almost £2,500 a month—a tiny fraction of what Elizabeth had squandered on futile expeditions to The Netherlands by her land forces and the hire of ineffective Swiss and German mercenaries.
Her finances were sorely stretched. Her military adventures in Europe had drained the Treasury and the interdiction of English trade had reduced it to a fraction of its former value, and Elizabeth made England’s trading performance even worse by granting monopolies to favoured courtiers or selling them to boost her revenues. The export of wool and finished cloth by the merchant adventurers was England’s principal source of wealth, accounting for 80 per cent of exports at the start of her reign, the vast majority of which was sold through the great market of Antwerp. The blockade of Antwerp and hostilities with Spain severely damaged English exports, and although new “vents” (markets) were found in Hamburg, Middelburg, Emden and Stade, the trade was far below its levels of the 1560s. In December 1586, the Privy Council had even tried, without success, to compel the merchant adventurers to continue purchasing cloth for which they had no market. The lucrative markets of Spain and Portugal were closed to Englishmen, though many carried on trading “under cover of Scottish merchants,” and Spanish hostility made trade with the Mediterranean fraught with difficulties.
Elizabeth’s weak financial position was not unique. The whole European trading economy was close to collapse and even countries striving to remain neutral found their markets restricted. If there was money to buy their goods, ports were blockaded, and their ships were liable to be embargoed, impounded or seized upon the high seas, for privateers unable to find legitimate targets were more likely to take neutral ships as prizes than return home empty-handed. Even Spain was suffering from the disruption to trade. Before the Dutch revolt, the tax revenues from the Spanish Netherlands had contributed more to Philip’s Treasury than even the plate fleets from the New World. Now Antwerp, once the most densely populated and prosperous mercantile centre in Europe, self-proclaimed “for the uses of all merchants of whatever land or language,” was virtually deserted, and ships rotted at their berths in the ports, unable to run the blockade imposed by the Dutch Sea Beggars. Philip’s trade and tax revenues had disappeared and his sea communications with Flanders were vulnerable to interdiction by English ships; he was reduced to smuggling gold to Parma by “ordinary passenger barks freight with oranges, which under that small show do often carry the Spanish pay into Flanders.”3
As winter passed into the spring of 1588, Elizabeth continued her lifetime habit when faced with difficult or unpleasant realities: to prevaricate, vacillate, obfuscate and then to reach abrupt decisions only to retract them at once. Howard expressed his fears that the time for action was almost past and that Elizabeth’s indecision and tight-fistedness would be the cause of her downfall. “I fear me much and with grief I think it, that Her Majesty relies upon a hope that will deceive her and greatly endanger her; and then will it not be her money nor her jewels that will help; for as they will do good in time, so will they help nothing for the redeeming of time being lost.”
While they awaited Her Majesty’s permission to set sail, her captains worked to bring their ships to a pitch of battle readiness. They had taken a battering in the winter storms and needed repairs and refitting. “This winter’s weather, although we have been but a while abroad, has so stretched our sails and tackle, torn many of our blocks and pulleys and sheevers, stretched our boats and destroyed some of our pinnaces . . . as a man would never believe it unless he does see it; these be the fruits that the seas bring forth, especially in this time of the year.” During January and February, William Hawkins, elder brother of John and Lord Mayor of Plymouth, had each of the great galleons of the Western Squadron careened in turn on the Plymouth shore. One side was scraped and tallowed by day and the other side that night “by torchlight and cressets [metal containers filled with blazing pitch or oil], and in an extreme gale of wind, which consumes pitch, tallow and firs abundantly,” before being refloated on the spring tide.
He also made every effort to purify the ships and remove the reek of corruption and disease. Half-hearted attempts were often made to sterilize the lower decks by having a man carry a shovelful of smouldering pitch, sulphur or other pungent or aromatic substances through the ship. Hawkins preferred to send men up into the hills around Plymouth for cartloads of broom branches. Fires were built on the galley hearths in the bilges of the ships, and when well alight they were smothered in armfuls of wet broom. Clouds of dense, choking smoke filled the air as the men retreated and closed the hatches. The fires were left to burn themselves out overnight and the ashes were then removed, having destroyed, or so it was hoped, rats, lice, fleas and the taint of ship’s fever, flux and scurvy that hung over any ship long at sea.
His work complete, Hawkins declared that the ships were “so staunch as if they were made of a whole tree,” and Lord Howard shared his confidence. “I have been aboard of every ship that goes out with me, and in every place where any may creep and I do thank God that they be in the estate they be in; and there is never a one of them that knows what a leak means. There is none that goes out now but I durst go to the Rio de la Plata in her.” “I protest before God and as my soul shall answer for it that I think there are never in any place in the world worthier ships than these are, I had rather live in the company of these noble ships than in any place.”4
When Drake’s former flagship, the Elizabeth Bonaventure, went aground near Flushing, Howard went aboard her. Though she remained grounded for two tides before she could be refloated, “in all this time there never came a spoonful of water into her . . . Except the ship had been made of iron it were to be thought impossible to do as she had done and it may be well and truly said there never was nor is in the world a stronger ship than she is.” He became even more effusive about his own flagship, the Ark. Commissioned by Sir Walter Ralegh, the Ark Ralegh had been “purchased” by Queen Elizabeth in January 1587 while still under construction. Ralegh waited five years to be compensated and was then told that the value of the ship, £5,000, was being struck from his debts to the Crown. The 800-ton ship, later renamed Ark Royal, carried 55 heavy guns, including four 60-pounders, four 30-pounders and twelve 18-pounders. Howard had originally taken the Bear as his flagship, with his cousin Lord Thomas Howard in the Ark, but he made the change in mid-January 1588, as soon as he had inspected the ship. “I pray you tell Her Majesty for me that her money was well given for the Ark Ralegh for I think her the odd ship in the world for all conditions . . . We can see no sail great or small but how far soever they be off, we fetch them and speak with them.” Even Sir William Wynter was forced to admit that “our ships do show themselves like gallants here. I assure you it would do a man’s heart good to behold them, and would to God the Prince of Parma were upon the seas with all his forces . . . we would make his enterprise very unpleasant to him.”
Reports of the death of Santa Cruz had reached Elizabeth in late February or early March and allowed her to again delay putting her fleet to sea, but Howard continued to press her for greater urgency in t
he defence of her realm and eventually persuaded her to send another eight ships to join the squadron cruising off the Dutch coast. Drake was meanwhile champing at the bit to be off for the coast of Spain. Even though there were reports of as many as 400 to 500 ships manned by 80,000 men in Lisbon, he asked only for four more of the Queen’s galleons and some London ships to bring his own squadron up to 50 ships. “The advantage and gain of time and place will be the only and chief means for our good . . . with fifty sail of shipping we shall do more good upon their coast, than a great many more will do here at home; and the sooner we are gone, the better we shall be able to impeach them.” He was ready to mount a blockade, “attacking several different places along the coast,” and by so doing deter the Armada from setting sail, for “he knew (without self-flattery) what great fear his name inspired all along the coast of Spain.” The mere rumour of El Draque’s presence, “the dragon upon the coast,” was enough to keep Spanish ships cowering in port.5
Drake argued as forcibly as he dared for an easing of Elizabeth’s purse-strings to enable the fleet to be properly armed and provisioned, and for her to show the urgency and speed of decision that her perilous situation required. “I assure Your Majesty, I have not in my lifetime known better men, and possessed with gallanter minds . . . We are all persuaded that God, the giver of all victories, will in mercy look upon your most excellent Majesty and us your poor subjects, who for the defence of Your Majesty, our religion and native country, have resolutely vowed the hazard of our lives. The advantage of time and place in all martial actions is half a victory, which being lost is irrecoverable. Wherefore if Your Majesty will command me away with those ships which are here already and the rest to follow with all possible expedition, I hold it in my poor opinion the surest and best course; and that they bring with them victuals sufficient for themselves and us to the intent the service be not utterly lost for the want thereof . . . for an Englishman being far from his country and seeing a present want of victuals to ensue and perceiving no benefits to be looked for, but only blows, will hardly be brought to stay. I have order but for two months’ victuals . . . whereof one whole month may be spent before we come there; the other month’s victuals will be thought with the least to bring us back again. Here may the whole service and honour be lost for the sparing of a few crowns. Touching my poor opinion how strong Your Majesty’s fleet should be to encounter this great force of the enemy, God increase your most excellent Majesty’s forces both by sea and land daily, for this I surely think, there was never any force so strong as there is now ready or making ready against Your Majesty and true religion.”
John Hawkins argued equally forcibly for action on the coast of Spain and, showing his usual keen awareness of the best way to the Queen’s favour, urged “that there be always six principal good ships of Her Majesty’s . . . which shall haunt the coast of Spain and the islands and be a sufficient company to distress anything that goes through those seas . . . The charge . . . may be £2,700 a month for wages and victuals and it will be a very bad and unlucky month that will not bring in treble that . . . For these six ships we shall not break the strength of the navy; for we shall leave a sufficient company always at home to front any violence that can be any way offered to us.”6
A plan approved by the Privy Council on 25 February 1588 had called for the fleet to be divided in two, one half to patrol the Straits of Dover, the other “towards Ireland and Spain.” Two further small squadrons were also to be separated from the main fleets, one to intercept the flota in the Azores and the other to exploit the absence of Spanish forces with the Armada by attempting to stir an insurrection in Portugal. Such a profusion of aims and divisions of the English fleet was liable to end in disaster and the attacks of the two squadrons were deferred, but Elizabeth and her Council continued to insist that the fleet should be divided between the eastern and western approaches to the Channel, with the bulk of it, including John Hawkins and Lord Howard and the Eastern Squadron, stationed in the Medway and the Downs off the coast of East Kent.
Drake was the first to understand that Philip’s strategy would be to use the Armada to convoy Parma’s troops to England, and in a stream of letters and a personal appearance at the Court, he argued that, given the prevailing westerly winds in the Channel, the traditional defensive strategy of massing a fleet in the Narrow Seas was fundamentally flawed, yielding the weather gauge to the enemy and allowing them the opportunity to make a landing anywhere along the South Coast. Instead the bulk of the fleet should be based at Plymouth, from where it would have the ability both to pre-empt any landing by the Armada and defend the Channel coast throughout its length, and to shadow and attack it from windward as it made its way towards Flanders. Ireland was perennially vulnerable to Spanish invasion but the English ships could not patrol the Irish coast without leaving their own shores vulnerable to attack. If the Spaniards landed in Ireland, forces could then be mustered and convoyed to attack them, as had happened when the Hispano-Papal force was landed at Smerwick in 1580, but meanwhile it could be left to its own defences.
Having argued for the correct defensive strategy, Drake continued to urge even more strongly the pressing need to make a pre-emptive attack on the Armada. The first line of England’s defences was not the coastline of England but that of its enemy, and the first blow should be struck there. There was no shortage of precedents; many of Elizabeth’s forerunners—King John in 1213, Edward III in 1340, Henry V in 1416 and 1417 and her own father in 1512—had waged defensive war on an enemy coast. When the Queen, more as a delaying tactic than through any sudden interest in naval strategies, asked for details of his plans of attack, he replied that though “Your Majesty would willingly be satisfied from me how the forces now in Lisbon might best be distressed, truly this point is hardly to be answered as yet for two special causes: the first that our intelligences are as yet uncertain; the second is the resolution of our own people, which I shall better understand when I have them at sea. The last example at Cadiz is not . . . yet forgotten, for one flying now as Borough did, will put the whole in peril, for the enemy strength is now so greatly gathered together and ready to invade. But if Your Majesty will give present order for our proceeding to the sea and send to the strengthening of this fleet here four more of Your Majesty’s good ships, and those sixteen sail of ships with their pinnaces which are preparing in London, then shall Your Majesty stand assured, with God’s assistance, that if the fleet come out of Lisbon, as long as we have victual to live upon that coast, they shall be fought with.”
Drake had surveyed the outer defences of Lisbon while lying off the coast the previous summer, and later in 1587 an English pinnace had sailed undetected up the Tagus to “between the tower of St. Gian and that of Belém, where it remained one night,” to spy on the Spanish preparations and evaluate the Armada, but if his intention was to penetrate the most secure harbour in Europe he was scarcely likely to reveal his proposed tactics to anyone, even the Queen, since they would then be the subject of Privy Council discussion and Court gossip, and details would inevitably be passed to Spain. It’s equally possible that Drake simply did not know how he proposed to act—he had admitted at the start of his circumnavigation of the globe that “I have taken in hand that I know not in the world how to go through”—and he may well have been relying on his customary blend of guile, subterfuge, bold aggression and the fortune that attends the brave to carry the day. But even if he deemed the defences and the narrow twisting channels leading into the Tagus to be impregnable, he merely had to lie off shore and await the emergence of the Armada . . . assuming it was not already at sea.
Information on the state of the Armada remained sketchy, leading Howard to complain, “This I am sure of, if Her Majesty would have spent but 1,000 crowns to have had some intelligence, it would have saved her twenty times as much. Assure yourself he [Philip of Spain] knows what we do here.” The information that was available was alarming in the extreme, for most reports greatly exaggerated the number of
ships and men in the Armada. In April Frobisher informed Howard that a hundred pilots, including two Englishmen, had passed by Calais in a flyboat from Dunkirk, on their way to rendezvous with the Spanish fleet. A report brought from St. Malo by “a man of Dartmouth,” and passed on to the Queen by Drake, claimed “that their fleet is in number between four and five hundred sail, ready furnished with seventy or eighty thousand sailors and mariners.” Wildest of all, Nicholas Abraham and Johan Lambert, “being prisoners in Bilbao for the space of 12 months and 20 days . . . did understand by credible report that there was provided and should be 700 sails of ships, galleys, galleasses, pinnaces, and pataches, and of men to the number of 280,000, said to be for England.” A rather more reliable witness, “a Breton who thirteen days past departed from Cadiz,” reported that all shipping was “stayed until such time as the Spanish fleet should be departed . . . for that no news should be carried to England,” and a letter from a Spanish nobleman in Lisbon, intercepted by Walsingham’s spies, confirmed that the Armada was ready to sail. “All things are embarked, even to the mules that must draw the artillery; and [it is] commanded here, upon pain of death, no man to go ashore; only we do tarry for a fair wind to go to sea.”7
As usual, Drake’s pleas for immediate action were backed by Walsingham and opposed by Burghley, who believed that Drake’s voyages were “only profitable to himself and his companions, but an injury to the Queen as they only irritated foreign princes.” As was her wont when faced with conflicting advice, Elizabeth first assented and then changed her mind, over and over again. Howard had originally preferred to marshal his forces close to England but by the spring of 1588 he had been convinced by Drake and his other commanders of the need for a pre-emptive strike. “I confess my error at that time . . . but I did and will yield ever unto them of greater experience,” and from then on he argued strenuously for that course of action. “The opinion of Sir Francis Drake, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Frobisher and others that be men of greatest judgement and experience, as also my own . . . is that the surest way to meet with the Spanish fleet is upon their own coast or in any harbour of their own, and there to defeat them.” Howard also criticized the half-cock preparations for war that were all the Queen would authorize. It was one of the few areas where a nobleman with little naval experience was more effective than a low-born sea-fighter like Drake, for as the Queen’s cousin and one of her oldest friends and allies Howard could write to her in terms that would not have been tolerated from any other source. “Surely this charge that Her Majesty is at is either too much or too little; and the stay that is made of Sir Francis Drake going out I am afraid will breed grave peril.” “I am sorry Sir F. Drake is not in more readiness than he is. I know the fault is not in him. I pray to God Her Majesty do not repent these slack dealings.”
