The Confident Hope of a Miracle

by Neil Hanson

  Sir Horatio Palavicino, a Genoese banker who had settled in England, made a vast fortune and become heavily involved in the financial affairs of Elizabeth’s government, also rushed from London to join the fight, pausing only to ensure that those left behind were made aware of the sacrifice he was making. “The greatness of my zeal which desires to be among those who do fight for Her Majesty’s service and for the defence of her kingdom, constrains me, with an honourable company, to depart this night toward Portsmouth there to embark and join the Lord Admiral where I hope to be present in the battle and thereby a partaker in the victory or to win an honourable death, thus to testify to the whole world my fidelity to her Majesty.” Still other boats carried spectators. Sir George Carey, Captain of the Isle of Wight, Henry Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, who was “Constable of Portchester Castle, Warden and Captain of the town, castle and isle of Portsmouth,” and the Lord Lieutenants of Hampshire and Dorset all put to sea in search of a grandstand view of the battle, and a trail of such small craft followed each English squadron, like shoals of small fish tracking a school of sharks.

  Ammunition was sorely needed by the fleet, volunteers rather less so. Disease and ship fever were taking a steady toll of crewmen and though the scrupulously recorded casualty figures of both sides were only in the low hundreds, with English casualties well below those of the Armada, they seriously underestimated the actual position. Men were recorded as being wounded only when they were actually disabled or incapacitated, and all captains—Spanish and English—were reluctant to document fatalities, for as long as a man’s name remained on the ship’s muster roll his pay could continue to be drawn. Commanders of land and sea forces often took “dead pays” at the rate of one for every ten men under their command. “I marvel that where so many are dead on the seas, the pay is not dead with them,” as Lord Burghley bitterly remarked. Fresh seamen were welcome to join the fleet, but Lord Howard needed no more soldiers aboard and sent back a contingent of 100 musketeers from Sir George Carey and “the best and choicest shot of the trained bands” from Kent that the Privy Council had dispatched “to double-man the ships.” Their weapons were of little use at the range at which the fleet had chosen to fight, and the men would merely be an added drain on already scant rations and water.

  While his fleet lay becalmed, Lord Howard signalled for another council of war. Less than half of each fleet had been engaged in the day’s brief hostilities but the English had again closed the range a little more and both fleets had taken heavier punishment as a result. One Spanish cannonball had damaged the main yard of Drake’s Revenge, while on the Spanish side, the San Martin and the San Juan were damaged and the Gran Grifon crippled and in tow. Yet despite the expenditure of a mountain of powder and shot, still no Armada ship had been captured or sunk as a result of English gunfire, and each lull in the fighting allowed the Spanish carpenters to make repairs. Nor had the Armada’s formation been disrupted enough to halt its relentless eastward progress. Nonetheless, Drake’s attack on the Gran Grifon—albeit at the cost of the damage to his own ship—had demonstrated the most effective range for the English guns, and Drake and his men had seen for themselves the damage their culverins had done to the Grifon’s stout oak hull. For the first time, an Armada ship’s hull had repeatedly been penetrated by shot. Far from the cannonballs’ embedding themselves in the outer planking or even bouncing off, as had happened in the previous days’ fighting, some shots had pierced the enemy ship “from side to side,” and the Gran Grifon had been disabled as a result.

  The attack had shown beyond doubt that the key to victory would lie in breaking up the Armada’s formidable defensive formation, isolating individual ships and then assailing them with overwhelming force at close range. The informal groupings of Howard’s fleet—each captain choosing for himself the leader he wished to follow into battle— and the improvisational nature of its attacks had not proved sufficient to achieve that aim, and Howard and his commanders now re-formed the fleet into four squadrons, one under his own command, the others led by John Hawkins—released from his duty of watching over the Lord Admiral—Francis Drake and Martin Frobisher. All knew the vital importance of the battle that would be joined the next day. A document circulated to the Privy Council had given three reasons why the Spaniards would attempt to seize a port on the Isle of Wight rather than at any other point on the coast. “First where he may find least resistance, and most quiet landing. Secondly, where he may have best harbour for his galleys and speediest supplies out of Spain, France and Flanders. Thirdly, where he may most offend the realm by incursions, and force Her Majesty, by keeping many garrisons to stand upon a defensive war . . . He may keep in safe harbour his galleys to make daily invasions . . . where they shall perceive the standing of the wind will impeach Her Majesty’s ships to come to their rescue. So that all the castles and sea towns of Hampshire, Sussex and Dorsetshire will be subject to be burnt, unless Her Majesty will keep garrisons in those places.” The course set by the Armada showed Medina-Sidonia’s intention to enter St. Helen’s Roads, to the east of the Isle of Wight; the English Grand Fleet now had to prevent him from securing the anchorage that he sought.2

  Through the afternoon and evening, the fleets drifted slowly eastwards towards St. Catherine’s Point, observed by watchmen in the ruined tower where medieval monks had once kept a light burning for the safety of shipping. Men laboured in both fleets to prepare for the next day’s battle, checking the sails, tuning the running ropes and rigging, filling the cartridges with powder, stacking shot in the lockers by every gun, and preparing their personal weapons, before settling down to whatever rest and sleep they could obtain. Knowing that the next day’s battle might decide the outcome of the war, Howard and his senior commanders were meanwhile planning a desperate gamble. The Queen’s galleons and a handful of the large armed merchantmen had done the bulk of the fighting so far. Lacking the weight of armament to outmatch the Spanish galleasses and great ships, the rest of the fleet was of scarcely more value than the spectator craft. “If you had seen what I have seen of the simple service that has been done by the merchant and coast ships, you would have said that we had been little helped by them, otherwise than that they did make a show.”

  However, the English commanders now planned to launch a night attack, using twenty-four of these armed—and expendable— merchantmen to harass and disrupt the Spanish formation, leaving it all the more vulnerable to a dawn assault by the main English force. Any damage or disruption they could cause, even at the price of being lost themselves, would make the task of the galleons at first light that much easier. It would have been another daring innovation; sea battles had never been fought at night because “the fogs of battle,” made worse by the darkness, created too much confusion, and there was also the danger of collisions or of “friendly fire” from other ships of the attackers’ own fleet. But on this occasion, the potential advantages outweighed the risks and the attack would have been launched had the dead calm not prevented it. As it was, the hours of darkness passed without incident.

  Over 9,000 men had been mustered by Captain Dawtrey to defend Southampton and 3,000 were deployed around the cliffs and harbours of the Isle of Wight, where Sir George Carey had been riding all night, checking his watchmen and guards on the headlands, sea cliffs and beaches, and urging them to ever greater vigilance, ears tuned for the least sound of muffled oars in the darkness, eyes turned towards the point where the line of the breaking waves was marked by a dim phosphorescence, straining for a glimpse of any strange craft approaching the shore. The main camp at Carisbrooke remained on full alert and armed patrols moved constantly along the coastal paths. They watched as the new formation of the English fleet received its first test at daybreak the next morning, Thursday, 4 August, St. Dominic’s Day, and of particular significance to Medina-Sidonia since St. Dominic— Domingo de Guzman—was one of his ancestors. As the sun rose, the entire Armada raised flags in honour of the saint and an air of anticipation gripped the crews
and soldiers on both sides. If the Spaniards were to seize an English port as a base and a refuge, it had to be today, for by nightfall the eastward drift of the wind and tide would have pushed them past St. Helen’s Roads and into the Narrows where there was no deep-water harbour that would accommodate them. The English were well aware of the danger, and Howard’s intention was “so to course [chase] the enemy that they shall have no leisure to land.”3

  If Medina-Sidonia tried to enter St. Helen’s Roads, the tide would be running in his favour from around seven in the morning to noon. After that the force of the outgoing tide would be against him, and within three days of the peak spring tide, it would be running faster than the speed that the Armada could manage, even with a wind at its back. Medina-Sidonia’s pilots must have told him this, so he knew he had only a few hours to achieve his aim. Through his pilots and commanders, Howard was even better informed of the set and duration of the tides and, whatever the circumstances, his fleet would have attacked at first light in an attempt to delay or divert the Armada. In the event, they were offered an immediate opportunity, for once more two Spanish ships—the royal galleon San Luis de Portugal and the Santa Ana, a merchantman of the Andalusian squadron—had drifted away from the Armada during the night. Medina-Sidonia may even have deliberately offered them as bait, the kind of trap to bring the English to close quarters that he had failed to spring with the crippled Rosario.

  The flat calm still prevailed but Hawkins, whose squadron was nearest to the two ships, at once ordered an attack. Without the wind to fill their sails, his galleons were towed into range by men at the oars of the ships’ boats, but such calm conditions were ideal for the Spanish galleasses, and Medina-Sidonia at once sent them to counter-attack. Three of them bore down, towing behind them the carrack La Rata Encoronada, to bring extra fire-power to bear. On the English side, the Ark and Lord Thomas Howard’s Golden Lion were also being towed into range. The unprotected, unarmed men at the oars of the longboats were tempting targets for the gunners and musketeers aboard the galleasses, but there was enough harassing fire from the English galleons’ bow chasers and forward-angled cannons to give them some protection, and as the range closed they hauled the bows of their galleons around to bring the broadsides to bear on the enemy. “There were many good shots made by the Ark and the Lion at the galleasses, in the sight of both armies. One of them was fain to be carried away upon the careen [listing] and another, by a shot from the Ark, lost her lantern which came swimming by, and the third his nose.” But Howard’s claim that the galleasses “were never seen in fight any more” was demonstrably false; within half an hour, they were once more engaged in the battle. If one had indeed been listing, its carpenters had quickly repaired the damage and its pumps had righted the ship.

  A westerly breeze now began to stir and the remainder of the warships at once joined the action, fighting in a way that was almost identical to the battle off Portland two days previously. Frobisher again took the perilous shoreward flank, the squadrons of Drake and Hawkins attacked the seaward wing, and Howard’s squadron once more had the task of “fixing” the Spanish centre. “At the same time that this conflict was in our rear, the enemy’s admiral and other great ships assailed our capitana [the San Martin]. They came closer than on the previous day firing off their heaviest guns from the lowest deck, cutting the trice [mainstay] of our mainmast and killing some of our soldiers.” The fact that the English commanders were only now using the heavy guns on the lower deck suggests that the seas may have been too rough on the previous days to allow the gunports close to the waterline to be opened, though it is also possible that they simply did not have enough powder and shot to fire them until this crucial point was reached.4

  The significance that the English accorded to the battle was shown by the urgency that they showed and the risks they were now prepared to take, not only in being towed into battle against the galleasses and in closing the range on the Spanish great ships before opening fire, but in exposing Frobisher to even greater potential danger than off Portland. Once more, no record of the fleet’s tactical plan was kept—the “secrets of the services” were still to be maintained—and it is possible that even Howard was not informed of the precise tactics his commanders were to adopt. He would not have been the first, nor certainly the last inexperienced senior officer on land or sea to be told only what his more seasoned subordinates felt was appropriate for him to know. Whether or not Howard knew what was in the minds of Drake, Frobisher and Hawkins, the nature and timing of their attacks demonstrate that they were again using their superior knowledge of the local coastlines, tides, currents and wind conditions to manoeuvre the Armada into a position from where it would be unable to gain the haven it sought.

  The fleets were now closing on the eastern approaches to Spithead and the Solent. If the Armada were to reach Bembridge Foreland while the flood tide was still running, the prevailing wind and sea conditions would make it easy for the Spanish ships to sweep into St. Helen’s Roads and the English fleet could not follow them in without risking a battle at close quarters that would bring the overwhelming Spanish superiority in battle troops into play. If they held off, the Spaniards would be free to put enough troops ashore to overwhelm the English militias assembled to repulse them. However, if the Armada could be harried, diverted and delayed by just a couple of hours, the set of the tide and currents would change. The waters penned by the flood tide into the broad, crescent-shaped channel to the west, north and east of the Isle of Wight are released as the tide eases, fuelling an outgoing south-easterly current of four knots—twice the speed that the slowest Armada ships could manage. In addition, just as off Portland, there was a clashing tidal race and eddy—the St. Catherine’s Race, making as much as six or seven knots in full spate—that those who knew the waters could utilize and those who did not would enter at their peril. These coasts were even more dangerous than those around Portland Bill, for the Isle of Wight marks a clear divide between the rocky cliffs and deep waters of the West Country and the shoals and shallows that line the Hampshire and Sussex coasts. That area had been lost to the sea only recently, in the inundations of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and, though there were deep channels following the lines of ancient river valleys incised into the seabed, the depth of most of these inshore waters at low tide varied from three fathoms to as little as two—considerably less than the draught of the Spanish great ships.

  Frobisher’s squadron kept close inshore as the tide swept both fleets steadily eastwards at around a knot. The current was faster both nearer to the shore, where it pushed the Triumph to the north and east of the Spanish vanguard, and in the main channel several miles out to sea, where the squadrons of Drake and Hawkins were also advancing around the seaward wing of the Armada. Once more, the San Martin found itself isolated on the shoreward flank, accompanied only by “the galleass Patrona,” and Frobisher’s squadron was soon giving the flagship another battering, but the wind began to strengthen, enabling a number of Spanish ships, led by Miguel de Oquendo, to come to the San Martin’s aid. So powerful was St. Catherine’s Race that Oquendo was forced to station his ship directly in front of the San Martin’s bow, “as the current made it impossible for him to stand alongside.” Seeing the danger, most of Frobisher’s squadron had already found enough searoom and speed to manoeuvre around the Spanish attack and make their escape, but the Triumph appeared trapped to leeward, in an almost identical position to the earlier battle off Portland.

  Medina-Sidonia was confident that this time he had his foe cornered, and the strange motion of Frobisher’s ship, holding station in the troubled waters between the race and the eddy, convinced most Spanish observers that his ship was crippled, the rudder “injured and useless.” According to Medina-Sidonia, the Triumph had been “so spoiled in the fight that she struck the standard and discharged pieces to show her need of succour,” but if so, Frobisher was foxing, attempting to lure the San Martin into danger. Once more he knew these waters s
o intimately that, having achieved his aim of delaying the Armada’s eastward course, he then used his knowledge to make his escape. He ordered his longboats to be lowered and other members of his squadron also sent him their ships’ boats, until a total of eleven were towing the Triumph into the furious waters of the race, while two of Howard’s biggest galleons, the Elizabeth Jonas and the Bear, attacked the Spaniards in the flanks.

  Medina-Sidonia maintained his course, intent on closing with his prey. “It appeared certain that we would that day succeed in boarding them, wherein was the only way to victory,” but with the wind freshening and veering a little and the Triumph now positioned to ride the current, Frobisher ordered the longboats cast off, piled on sail and “got out so swiftly that the galleon San Juan and another quick sailing ship—the fastest vessels in the Armada—although they gave chase, seemed in comparison to her to be standing still.” By the race-built standards of the English fleet, the Triumph was an old, top-heavy and clumsy vessel, and the speed at which it sailed away from its pursuers shows how adeptly Frobisher was utilizing the fast-flowing currents and races swirling about the headlands. 5

  At exactly the same time as Frobisher’s squadron had been attacking the shoreward wing of the Armada and Howard had been battering the centre, the squadrons of Drake and Hawkins had thrown their weight into the action with a brilliantly conceived, sudden and ferocious assault from the south-west on the Armada’s rearguard. No account mentions Drake by name at this point and there have been suggestions that, having sustained some damage to his mainmast in the previous day’s fighting, he had dropped behind to repair it and took no part in the battle. That is certainly possible, but the damage was not severe enough to require the mast to be replaced—it was described as “decayed with shot” when the fleet was surveyed after its return to port that autumn—and the attack on the seaward wing is very much in Drake’s style. Such was his reputation and influence that it would have been a severe blow to the fleet’s morale if he had been absent from such a crucial battle. Ships carried spare yards and spars, either in the holds or lashed to the side of the ship, and the job of replacing one was not so huge that it could not have been achieved inside twenty-four hours, even if his men had to labour all night. If that had not proved sufficient, it is hard to imagine that Drake would have sat out the battle rather than commandeering another ship of his squadron as a temporary flagship. It is surely more probable that his role in the fighting was either unobserved by Howard and those on the far wing of the battle, or that in boosting their own role in their personal accounts they downplayed that of others.