by Neil Hanson
“This letter falling into the hands of the said Courteney, he thrust us into a strong prison, giving us for our diet but bread, broth and water. We were in such straits that seeing ourselves dying, we resolved to break out of prison and appeal to the justices for a remedy, but they answered that they were unable to relieve us, because he was a powerful man with whom they could not meddle. So that we were sent back to our prison and remained therein seven months, suffering great hardship.” By February 1591, Courteney had increased his ransom demands to 25,000 ducats. It was again refused, and the surviving prisoners were still incarcerated in March 1592. Nothing further was ever heard of them.20
Other captives were in similarly desperate straits, often escaping from ship fever only to fall prey to jail fever instead. Of the remaining men from the Rosario, “five of the chiefest of them” had been sent to the Earl of Bath to await ransom and 226 were locked in the Bridewell in London. Alderman Radcliffe, Sheriff of London, complained of the cost and proposed that “some three or four” of them might by some means be made liable for it. “If some help be not obtained towards their maintenance by this means, we shall be compelled, in respect of the great poverty of the said house to make a general collection through the city for the maintenance of those Spaniards, which will be very unwillingly assented to by the common sort.” The prisoners were subjected to daily Protestant sermons on top of their other sufferings, and “a Sardinian and . . . an Andalusian” gave a sufficiently convincing proof of conversion to the faith to be released from jail, though their joy must have been rapidly tempered when they were sent to Ireland to assist in the interrogation and processing of prisoners there who had somehow escaped the sword and the rope. Those left behind in the Bridewell who stubbornly refused to convert and compounded their offence by refusing “to listen to the preaching . . . are not allowed any share in the alms.” Without the alms donated as acts of charity by the public, prisoners had no money to bribe their jailers to ensure they were fed, and many died. “Last week there died one of the Spaniards in Bridewell, Alonso de la Serna, and there are many of them ill. They suffer much, especially as winter is coming on and they do not have enough clothes to cover their nakedness. My heart aches for them, but I have not the power to help them.”
The rest of the Rosario’s men were in even worse case, incarcerated “aboard the Spanish ship to live upon such victuals as do remain.” When those rotting scraps had been consumed, the Sheriff of Devon bemoaned the difficulty of feeding them and “conveying . . . their victuals unto them, which was very burdensome to our people in this time of harvest . . . The people’s charity unto them (coming with so wicked an intent) is very cold; so that if there be not order forthwith taken by your Lordships, they must starve. They are many in number, and several of them already very weak, and some dead.” 21
Don Pedro de Valdes and the other captured nobles and gentlemen received far less brutal treatment. De Valdes and two “captains of foot-men” were lodged at the house of Sir Francis Drake’s brother, Richard, until their ransom could be arranged, and “forty of the better sort” were accommodated in various private houses around London. On being told that the Lords of the Council “intended to take some honourable course for the releasing of the soldiers and mariners taken in his ship by way of ransom,” de Valdes said “it was a clemency sufficient to mollify the hardest heart of any enemy; the news was as joyful unto them as if it had been tidings of their own liberty, in respect that the said poor people were raised by them and were their neighbours and came in this employment for the love and zeal that they bare unto them, so that if they should perish by long imprisonment or other want, it would be more grievous to them than all other accidents that might happen to themselves.”
De Valdes made a plea that the price of ransom would reflect the fact that his mariners and soldiers were “very poor men, serving the King for four, six and eight crowns a month.” The Council’s “pleasure was to let go of the inferior sort for a month’s pay or something more in respect of their charges,” while “such as were found to be of quality and well friended in Spain should be detained, and exchanged for others of Her Majesty’s subjects in prison and in the galleys of Spain, or else released for sums answerable to their vocations.” De Valdes was permitted to send the Duke of Parma “letters of credit, to deal for the said ransom and for shipping for transportation of the prisoners into Spain.” Haggling and foot-dragging between the Crown and Parma over the ransom to be paid continued for a year, but after he was warned that the Privy Council would “dispose of the prisoners” if the ransom was not paid, their release was finally effected on 24 November 1589. 22
Pedro de Valdes himself was held until 1593, but found means to send secret dispatches to Philip which may have helped to rehabilitate him after the feeble surrender of his ship to Drake. He was eventually ransomed for £1,500; only Don Alonso de Luzon and Don Diego Pimentel had fetched a higher price. Richard Drake had charge of de Valdes throughout his long period of house arrest and when the Spaniard fell ill, Drake became so “fearful that the said Don Pedro would die and . . . that he would lose all the charges that he was at in keeping him” that he made desperate pleas for the ransom to be arranged. He may have galvanized the Council into action, for de Valdes was released not long afterwards.
All the Portuguese prisoners in English hands had been released much earlier, given their freedom “on condition that they should embark in Dom Antonio’s fleet,” sailing with Drake to Lisbon in January 1589. Most would not have had a long life in which to enjoy their freedom, for 9,000 men perished from disease during the disastrous voyage, and many of the Portuguese, already debilitated from their incarceration in jail, must have been among them. There were still Spanish prisoners in England in 1596, eight years after the Armada, and in June of that year the Privy Council decreed that the few remaining captives should be put in a “prison of severe punishment,” in retaliation for the treatment of Englishmen in Spanish jails after the sacking of Cadiz. The last prisoners in English hands, a few survivors of the wreck of the San Pedro el Mayor, were not returned to Spain until 1597.23
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Disease Uncured
On the morning of Thursday 18 August, ships of the English Grand Fleet, battered by a storm the previous day, bore down on a north-easterly wind and began dropping anchor in harbours all the way down the East Coast. “My Lord [of Cumberland] bare with a pinnace into Harwich, I bare with some of the ships into Margate, where the rest be gone I do not know, for we had a most violent storm as was ever seen at this time of the year that put us asunder athwart of Norfolk.” The same day John Hawkins led nine of the Queen’s ships and another twenty-five armed merchant ships into Harwich. The Grand Fleet had suffered some storm damage but was virtually untouched by enemy gunfire. In a survey taken of the Queen’s ships after they returned to port, all the requisitions were for “cables, hawsers, rope, &c, anchors and grapnels,” plus a few longboats “lost at sea” or “not serviceable with a shiver [splinter] of iron in the head and one in the davit.” Towed behind the main ship or stowed on deck, the ships’ boats were always very vulnerable to battle or storm damage. The inventory of the Elizabeth Bonaventure included “a bloody flag” and a silk ensign “spoiled with shot,” but with the exception of the Revenge, whose mainmast was “decayed and perished with shot,” the masts, yards and timbers had suffered little more than normal wear and tear. However, every ship was almost empty of victuals, powder and shot, and riddled with typhus and dysentery.
As soon as they came to anchor, final reports on the outcome of the battle with the Armada were dispatched. Sir Horatio Palavicino reported an emphatic victory. “The enemy, without having attempted anything, have lost eleven or twelve of their best ships, that we know of; four to five thousand men, three parts of the King’s treasure, which was divided amongst five vessels; are reduced to great extremity, not having a drop of water nor much victual, and very many sick, as all the prisoners report; so there
is every appearance that very few of either ships or men will return into Spain.” But not all were convinced that the final victory had yet been won. Lord Howard wrote to Walsingham that day, “in haste and much occupied . . . Some made little account of the Spanish force by sea, but I do warrant you, all the world never saw such a force as theirs was,” though he could not resist adding, “let Mendoza know that Her Majesty’s rotten ships dare meet with his master’s sound ships; and in buffeting with them, though they were three great ships to one of us, yet we have shortened them 16 or 17; whereof there is three of them a-fishing in the bottom of the seas.” 1
Drake expressed general satisfaction at the outcome, but believed that the Armada would try to take refuge in Denmark, and though its losses were severe, after resupplying and refitting it might return to the attack. “We understand by several prisoners which we have taken that generally through all their whole fleet, there was not one ship free of sick people. Secondly their ships, masts, sails and ropes were very much decayed and spoiled by our great shot. Thirdly at Calais, by fire, we forced them to cut many of their cables, whereby they lost many of their anchors, which of necessity they must seek to supply. Further, if they had none of these great causes of distress, yet the winds and storm, with the wind westerly, as it was, has forced them there . . . I assure myself that whensoever Her Majesty shall hear of their arrival in any of these coasts, that Her Highness shall be advertised both of their great distress and of no small loss among them . . . We had no wind whereby they were able to recover any place of the mainland of Scotland . . . Norway or the out isles of Scotland can relieve them but with water and a few cows or some bad beef, and some small quantities of goats and hens, which is to them as nothing. And yet these bad reliefs are to be had but in few places and their roads [harbours] dangerous. The only thing which is to be looked for is that if they should go to the King of Denmark . . . he is a prince of great shipping and can best supply . . . great anchors, cables, masts, ropes and victuals, and what the King of Spain’s hot crowns will do in cold countries for mariners and men, I leave to your Lordship, which can best judge thereof.”
Drake warned that Parma still remained a threat. “Being so great a soldier as he is . . . will presently, if he may, undertake some great matter . . . My poor opinion is that we should have a great eye unto him.” And with the other eye on Elizabeth’s invariable tendency to mothball her ships at the first opportunity, Drake also warned that, though some “will say that winter comes on apace, my poor opinion is that I dare not advise Her Majesty to hazard a kingdom with the saving [of] a little charge.” Drake wrote direct to the Queen that night, couching his advice in his customary guile and flattery. “We were entertained with a great storm, considering the time of the year, the which . . . has not a little annoyed the enemy’s army . . . Their ships, sails, ropes and masts need great reparations, for that they had all felt of Your Majesty’s force . . . I have not written this whereby Your Majesty should diminish any of your forces. Your Highness’s enemies are many.”2 Walsingham echoed his concerns. “It were not wisdom, until we see what will become of the Spanish fleet, to disarm too fast, seeing Her Majesty is to fight for a kingdom.”3
Some, less diplomatic, were bold enough to berate the damaging effects of Elizabeth’s close-fistedness in the face of even this potent threat to her throne. “Our parsimony at home has bereaved us of the famousest victory that ever our navy might have had at sea.” “If we had once more offered them fight, the General [Medina-Sidonia], it was thought by persuasion of his confessor, was determined to yield, whose example it is very likely would have made the rest to have done like. But this opportunity was lost, not through the negligence of the Lord Admiral, but merely through the want of providence of those that had the charge of furnishing and providing for the fleet, for at the time of so great advantage, when they came to examine their provisions, they found a general scarcity of powder and shot, for want whereof they were forced to return home . . . If we had been so happy as to have followed this course, we had been absolutely victorious over this great and formidable navy, for they were brought to that necessity that they would willingly have yielded, as several of them confessed that were shipwrecked in Ireland.”
Sir Thomas Heneage, Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, reported the furious complaints of the Earl of Cumberland that the fleet had “not received a corn of all [the powder] that was set down in paper by my Lord Treasurer.” He also complained that “having left the Spanish fleet for lack both of powder and meat . . . they [were] driven to such extremity for lack of meat as it is reported (I know not how truly) that my Lord Admiral was driven to eat beans and some to drink their own water [urine].” After perusing the reports, Walsingham concurred. “I am sorry the Lord Admiral was forced to leave the prosecution of the enemy through the wants he sustained. Our half-doings do breed dishonour and leave the disease uncured.” 4
With the immediate threat to England lifted but the Armada’s whereabouts off Scotland unknown, the troops under the Earl of Huntingdon, Lord President of the North, were reinforced and word was conveyed to James VI that these armies were at hand to aid him in fighting the Spaniards if they landed, with the implicit threat that if James reached an accommodation with the Spaniards the same troops would be used against him. James meanwhile sent a message to Elizabeth enquiring when her ambassador’s pledges to him of the Duchy of Lancaster and a formal announcement that he was her chosen heir would come into effect. Elizabeth delayed her response until the fate of the Armada was known for certain and then “told him she knew nothing about such a thing and repudiated her ambassador’s promise.” The ambassador in question, William Ashley, also received a letter from Walsingham, rebuking him for exceeding his authority, but it seems likely that this was for public consumption rather than genuine. It is inconceivable that Ashley would have made such offers to James without Elizabeth’s express authorization. Whether her back-tracking afterwards was Machiavellian or merely yet another of her wilful changes of mind was irrelevant. By Elizabeth’s calculation or her good fortune, with Spain defeated and his own Catholic subjects intensely hostile to him, James had nowhere else to turn but to his perfidious English ally.
Elizabeth and her Privy Counsellors now turned their attention to proposals for completing the destruction of the Armada and striking at the source of Philip’s wealth. There was “great activity” to prepare the fleet for a return to sea, and so great was the haste that “all the beef in the London slaughter-houses and butcher’s shops was taken and salted, leaving the town without beef.” Sir William Fitzwilliam wrote from Ireland requesting Walsingham to “hasten five or six ships from Bristol to the Irish coast to destroy the 40 sea-beaten vessels returning into Spain.” Even Burghley uncharacteristically urged the expenditure of additional money on the fleet, suggesting that “four good ships, well manned and conducted, might follow them [the Armada] to their ports, where they might distress a great number of them, being weather-beaten and where the numbers of the gallants will not continue on shipboard.” Walsingham, equally out of character, rejected the suggestion. “Touching your Lordship’s opinion for the sending of four ships well appointed to follow the Spanish fleet, I think, if it had been thought of in time, they might have been very well employed, but I fear it will now be too late.” 5
Seymour, still patrolling the Narrow Seas, dismissed any suggestion that he might pursue the Spaniards. “My summer ship, always ordained for the Narrow Seas, will never be able to go through with the Northern, Irish or Spanish seas, without great harm and spoil of our own people by sickness.” “I hardly believe we shall find [the enemy and] this ship is not for the purpose, except she be presently mended and repaired; for our men fall sick by reason of the cold nights and cold mornings we find, and I fear me they will drop away far faster then they did the last year with Sir Henry Palmer, which was thick enough.” Having ruled himself out of contention, he then urged immediate action to intercept the treasure fleet from the New World. �
�I fear them not this year, nor the next, if Her Majesty will not still be entertained with peace, but rather do proceed to intercept the India fleet [the flota ] which is shortly to return.”
The Queen expressed interest as long, inevitably, as it could be done without charge, but that prospect was faint. Howard “sent presently for Sir Francis Drake and showed him the desire that Her Majesty had for the intercepting of the King’s treasure from the Indies . . . neither of us finding any ships here in the fleet any ways able to go such a voyage before they have been aground, which cannot be done in any place but Chatham and . . . it will be fourteen days before they can be grounded.” Howard added a sarcastic reminder of the distance to the Indies and the proximity of winter. “Belike it is thought the islands be but hereby; it is not thought how the year is spent.” The ships undoubtedly needed careening and rummaging, but even if they had been ready to sail there were barely seamen enough to crew them, and virtually no powder or shot to munition them.
