The Confident Hope of a Miracle

by Neil Hanson

  The Queen’s other captains also urged action. Thomas Fenner wrote to Walsingham, “I would to God we had been now upon that coast [of Spain]; the impediments would have been great upon their army [i.e., the Armada] gathering together . . . We rest here a great number of valiant men, and to great charge upon my gracious mistress, and a great grief of mind to spend Her Majesty’s treasure and do nothing upon the enemy.” Lord Henry Seymour even managed to turn his account of running aground in the Elizabeth Bonaventure off Flushing into a plea for the restraints on the navy to be removed. “I wish that this honourable ship, being grounded 12 hours upon the sands, had been as long in fight and trial with the Spaniards in good sea-room.” Walsingham took little persuading of the need for an end to cheese-paring and a start to decisive action. “I am sorry to see so great a danger hanging over this realm so slightly regarded and so carelessly provided for. I would to God the enemy were no more careful to assail than we to defend.” 8

  When Elizabeth was at last persuaded of the wisdom of basing her main forces at Plymouth—she continued to prevaricate about allowing Drake to launch a pre-emptive attack on the Armada—she uncharacteristically granted even more than he had requested: fourteen of her strongest galleons and many of the armed merchantmen and volunteer ships, but a fleet of that size had to be commanded by the Lord Admiral himself, leaving Seymour’s squadron to guard the Narrow Seas. Howard sailed for Plymouth on 31 May—“the wind serving exceedingly well, I cut sail at the Downs”—and he arrived at eight o’clock on the morning of 2 June, flying the royal standard and the flag of an admiral, and followed by the other thirty ships of his fleet in battle order. Drake sailed out to meet him with his ships in three files, “making a brave show of his skill and diligence, sending the pinnaces and other smaller craft ahead, making a show of reconnoitring the ships that were coming in.” The “decks, tops, yards and shrouds” of Drake’s ships were lined with men and he fired his guns in salute, had the drums and trumpets sounded, and lowered his own flag—until then he had been Admiral in the West—and hoisted the vice-admiral’s flag that Howard had sent him to acknowledge the Lord Admiral’s primacy. Drake’s demotion was more than a matter of mere pride, for his share of the income from patronage and junior officers’ appointments was correspondingly reduced, but Howard’s fears of Drake’s resentment proved unfounded. To the surprise of many, he accepted his position without apparent demur and, whatever his private feelings, in public he showed all the proper respect to his commander. “I must not omit to let you know how lovingly and kindly Sir Francis Drake bears himself and also how dutifully to Her Majesty’s service and to me.”

  If Howard feared problems with his vice-admiral, Drake also had potential problems with his immediate subordinates. The vastly experienced John Hawkins had once been Drake’s own captain and might resent taking orders from him, and Martin Frobisher had returned from his voyage with Drake in 1586 burning with resentment at Drake’s arrogance and indifference to opinions other than his own. Time had in no way diminished his fierce hatred. The captains of the ships provided by the City of London took a different view. A Spanish agent claimed that they had refused to serve under the inexperienced Howard “and wish to be commanded by Drake.” Their request was granted but Howard’s position within the fleet was strengthened by his contribution of seven of his own ships, all of which were commanded by relatives or close associates. He also had a network of relatives commanding several of the Queen’s ships: Lord Henry Seymour, Admiral of the Narrow Seas, was his brother-in-law, Sir Robert Southwell and Sir Richard Leveson were his sons-in-law, Lord Thomas Howard his cousin, and Lord Sheffield his nephew.9

  Although one potential obstacle had been avoided, Howard had much else to occupy his thoughts. After shortages in the fleet and the absence of either supplies or funds from the Crown had forced Drake and Hawkins to use their own money to buy food for their crews, Howard appealed to the Privy Council for £5,000 or £6,000 to buy provisions, and even expressed the belief that the Armada’s departure might be deliberately delayed to aggravate the supply problems of the English fleet. “I am verily persuaded they mean . . . to linger it out upon their own coast until they understand we have spent our victuals here.” Victuallers bringing supplies from London were repeatedly delayed and Howard’s orders from the Queen were countermanded, reinstated and then countermanded again. He wrote angrily to Burghley on 7 June to complain that he had been told that the victuals for the fleet, promised a week earlier, “would not be ready to depart in 12 or 14 days after . . . I judged it would be so, for when there is more care had of the merchants’ traffic than there is of such matter of importance as this is, it is like it will be no better. My Lord we have here now but 18 days’ victual and there is none to be gotten in all this country and what that is to go withal to sea, your Lordship may judge, and to tarry, that we must not . . . God send us a wind to put us out, for go we will, though we starve . . . for I believe surely if the wind hold here but six days, they will knock at our door.”

  Adding further point to Howard’s protests about the preference being given to merchants, Burghley sent a letter ordering him to allow a ship from Hamburg laden with rice and other foodstuffs to depart for London. Howard replied that he had already “caused the said rice to be stayed and taken for Her Majesty’s use,” and once more appealed for further supplies. “There is here the gallantest company of captains, soldiers and mariners that I think was ever seen in England. It were pity that they should lack meat when they are so desirous to spend their lives in Her Majesty’s service.” “I will never go again to such a place of service but I will carry my victuals with me and not trust to careless men behind me. We came away with scarce a month’s victuals; it had been little enough but to have gone to Flushing. We think it should be marvelled how we keep our men from running away, for the worst men in the fleet know for how long they are victualled, but I thank God as yet we are not troubled with mutinies, nor I hope shall not [be], for I see men kindly handled will run through the fire and water.” Burghley ignored the complaints and continued to busy himself with attempts to balance the Crown accounts—a hard task for a man “unable to handle the simplest addition or subtraction sums in any but Roman figures, with the inevitable result of frequent mistakes and faulty account-keeping.” There was, it is true, little enough money to go round, but the predicament was as much of Elizabeth’s making as of outside factors such as the decline in trade. Had she reined in her more useless expenditures in previous years or summoned Parliament to meet the extraordinary situation with an extraordinary grant, more money might have been available, but as it was, her fleet remained starved of victuals and warlike supplies.10

  Despite the concerted arguments of Howard, Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher that the place to defend the coast of England was on the coast of Spain, the Queen still directed Walsingham to veto any such plan, fearing that the Armada might outflank her fleet and “shoot over to this realm.” Howard’s reply pointed out the futility of trying to use his fleet to defend all the possible approaches and landing places that the Armada might choose along the entire coastline of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. He added, with heavy sarcasm, “I must and will obey, and am glad there be such there [at Court] as are able to judge what is fitter for us to do than we here.” Having registered his protest, Howard was forced to patrol uselessly, “plying up and down” far out in the western approaches as the Queen required, despite bad weather and rough seas. By 23 June he was complaining that “here is such weather as never was seen at this time of the year . . . the wind has continued so bad these 15 days we could by no means send any pinnace into the Trade [the sea area between Brest and Ushant].”

  Over the following days, alarming reports began to come in of sightings of Spanish ships near the Scilly Isles. On Thursday 30 June “a barque of Mousehole in Cornwall being bound for France to lade salt, encountered with nine sail of great ships between Scilly and Ushant, bearing in North-East with the coast of England . . .
their sails were all crossed over with a red cross . . . The same morning . . . the Englishman had speech with a flyboat who . . . willed him in any wise, as he loved his life, not to proceed, for said he, the Spanish fleet is on the coast.” There were other reports of fleets of great ships with red crosses upon their sails, and on 1 July a Dublin barque was captured “some 15 leagues South-west of Lizard” by a group of Spanish ships and taken in tow. The cable parted in “foul weather” and three of the Irish crew made their escape. They reported that the ships were “eighteen sail in number, great hulks and very full of Spaniards, not less than ten thousand.” A trader, Simons of Exeter, was chased by “fifteen Spanish ships.” He reached harbour in Cornwall and at once rode for Plymouth to bring a warning to Drake, but by then reports were coming in that the Armada had been scattered by storms, with many ships in harbour at Corunna.11

  The Queen at once “swore by God’s death, as she is accustomed to do, and with a great deal more brag, that she would send her fleet to disperse the Armada, even if it were in the interior of Spain,” or so the Spaniards were informed by one of their agents. In fact the Queen rather more typically took the opportunity to tell Lord Howard that with the Armada scattered, at least for the moment, three of her galleons could be returned to their previous employment of “keeping Chatham Church,” and their crews laid off. Only the most furious and desperate arguments from Howard persuaded her to change her mind. Meanwhile, restricted to port by the shortage of victuals, his fleet missed the chance to strike a damaging blow at the Armada, for while it remained in or near Plymouth, as the reports had indicated, eighteen Spanish ships blown off course by a gale were hovering around the Scillies, where they would have proved easy prey.

  Plymouth was a town of only 2,000 citizens and the fleet assembled there had more than doubled its population, causing severe pressure on food supplies at a time of year when the ripening grain had yet to be gathered and the previous year’s poor harvest had caused a tripling of the price of wheat. When the supplies promised from London failed to appear, Marmaduke Darell, responsible for victualling the Western Fleet, toured the countryside of Devon and Cornwall, one of the poorest regions of the country, buying what provisions he could find, “more like a mess steward with a market basket than the agent victualler of a great fleet.” He managed to scrape together a fortnight’s provisions, but the staple of the navy, salt-beef, was not to be had. Even if enough bullocks could be found and slaughtered, it took “at least eighteen days to barrel the salt meat.” When the London victuallers still failed to appear and supplies again ran low, Darell was once more forced to cajole, bribe and threaten farmers, brewers, bakers and suppliers into producing a few more days’ provisions. Howard was now beside himself with impatience to be provisioned and at sea, so that his fleet could either defend the coast if the Armada was upon them, or attack it in harbour if it was still at Corunna. On 29 June he wrote to Walsingham, pleading, “For the love of God, let not Her Majesty care now for charges, so as it be well used . . . I pray send to us with all speed, but I hope to be gone before I hear from you, for I will not tarry one hour after our victuals do come to us and if the wind will serve us, for there must be no time lost now and we must seek to cut off their time.”12

  Drake echoed his words. “Our staying here in this place shall but spend our victual, whereby our whole action is in peril.” Three days later, on Saturday 2 July, Howard sent another desperate appeal. “Our victuals are not yet come . . . our extremity will be very great . . . Men have fallen sick and by thousands fain to be discharged [and] others pressed in their stead, which has been an infinite charge [and] great trouble to us . . . we have been more careful of Her Majesty’s charges than of our own lives as may well appear by the scantyings [scrimpings and savings] which we have made.” “I am very sorry that Her Majesty will not thoroughly awake in this perilous and most dangerous time.” Around midnight that night, the victualling fleet at last arrived at Plymouth, together with fresh orders from the Queen to set sail for Spain. It was only just in time, for even on short rations the fleet was down to its last three days’ supplies. After a sleepless night, Howard sent a message that was both an acknowledgement that the supplies had been received and a final exhortation to the Queen. “They were no sooner come in, though it were night, but we went all to work to get in our victuals which I hope shall be done in 24 hours, for no man shall sleep nor eat till it be dispatched so that, God willing, we shall be under sail tomorrow morning . . . For the love of Christ, Madam, awake thoroughly and see the villainous treasons round about you, against Your Majesty and your realm, and draw your forces round about you like a mighty prince, to defend you.”13

  By seven that Sunday evening Howard was writing to Walsingham, “God willing, I will cut sail within this three hours,” and with the north-east wind behind them and fearing that at any moment the Queen would yet again countermand her orders, the fleet put to sea without even waiting to complete the loading of the stores. Almost a hundred armed ships set sail for Corunna in the early hours of Monday 4 July, a great arc of ships, with a screen of pinnaces extending for several miles ahead and to either flank. If the Armada was upon the seas, only the most foul ill luck would enable it to avoid detection, but ill luck with the weather they had in plenty. The wind backed southerly and was blowing a gale before they had passed out of the Channel approaches, between the Scillies and Ushant (the Île d’Ouessant), and for over a week they beat into the wind, making painfully slow progress towards Spain. On 17 July the wind came northerly again, but the fleet was once more short of provisions and Howard was stricken with fear that the Armada might have put to sea and be able to slip by the English screen in the vast reaches of the Bay of Biscay. Drake would have none of it; there were provisions for the taking on Spanish ships and the Spanish coast, and he argued vehemently—on no more than experience and instinct, and the lack of sightings of Spanish ships on the open seas—that the Armada still lay at anchor in harbour.

  The Lord Admiral was duly persuaded to use the following wind to make a dash for Corunna, but within sixty miles of their target the wind betrayed them. It died to a flat calm and when it rose again it was blowing from the south-west and strengthening all the time. The difficulties of beating against the wind were compounded by the fear—now shared even by Drake—that the Spaniards might be using the same wind to put to sea. They had been in port for a month, ample time to refit and repair storm damage. It seemed inconceivable that they would not take advantage of this favourable wind to make for England, and if they passed the English fleet unseen they would arrive in the Channel to find it undefended. Howard and his commanders turned for home. Five days later they were back in Plymouth. In fact, they returned on the same day, 22 July, that the Armada once more set sail. The Queen’s galleons had proved their worth; they were little damaged by the gales and rough seas they had encountered, but many of the armed merchantmen needed repairs, having been “dispersed and returned in great misery, as by sickness and foul weather much beaten and spoiled,” and having lost spars and rigging or sprung leaks.

  No sooner had Howard dropped anchor than he was in receipt of a complaint from the Queen that he was not making sufficient efforts to locate the Armada. His reply was heavily sarcastic. “We are here to small purpose for this great service if that had not been thought of . . . There has been no day but there have been pinnaces, Spanish caravels, flyboats and of all sorts sent out . . . The winds have been so southerly and such foul weather . . . I know not what weather you have had there, but there was never any such summer seen here on the sea.” Seymour also bemoaned the weather as he rode the Straits of Dover but noted that though the south-westerly gales were the most favourable winds for the Armada, they would also batter its vessels. “Such summer season saw I never the like for storms and . . . westerly great gales . . . the same serve well many times for the Spaniards to come, yet shall they be as greatly dangered by the raging seas as with their enemies.”

  Howard had
other worries than the weather, for even though the English crewmen had been on short rations throughout the voyage, some ships were already again short of food and water, and dysentery and ship’s fever were breaking out among the crews. “God of his mercy keep us from sickness, for we fear that more than any hurt that the Spaniards will do. I would Her Majesty did know of the care and pains that is taken of all men for her service. We must now man ourselves again for we have cast many overboard and a number in great extremity which we discharged. I have sent with all expedition a prest [press gang] for more men.” Appeals were sent out to the Justices of the Peace throughout the South West for new recruits. Having scoured the seaports, press gangs ranged further and further inland, seizing men from their labour in the fields and even as they emerged from Sunday service in church. They were brought to Plymouth with only the clothes they stood up in. Meanwhile provisions and more munitions and powder were loaded aboard the ships, though the niggardly amounts of money allocated by the Queen would buy precious little of either. As it rode at anchor in Plymouth that day, Howard’s fleet had no more than ten days’ provisions and two days’ worth of gunpowder.14