The Spanish Armadas

by Winston Graham

  Like Elizabeth – only even more so than Elizabeth – Philip was compelled to place an aristocrat of great distinction at the head of his fleet. Elizabeth was lucky in Howard, who had served at sea when his father was Lord High Admiral, whose family in the past had given four admirals to England in Tudor times alone, and who had had separate command of a squadron of ships as early as 1570. (As further recommendation, he was first cousin to Anne Boleyn.) The death of Santa Cruz deprived Philip of just such a man; one of unimpeachable nobility and of high enough birth to take precedence over all others, but born to the sea. After consideration Philip chose to succeed him Don Alonso Perez de Guzman, Seventh Duke of Medina Sidonia, Count of Nebla, Marquis of Casheshe in Africa, Lord of the City St Lucar, Captain General of Andalusia and Knight of the Honourable Order of the Golden Fleece.

  It was a formidable title for a man of formidable means and position. But the Duke of Medina Sidonia – then aged thirty-seven – suffered all his life from one of the gravest and rarest afflictions known to man: he had a poor opinion of his own abilities. He was also more than a trifle melancholic. He underestimated himself; and his contemporaries and most of his successors have taken their cue from him – they always do. But lately some historians, notably Mattingly, have done something to rehabilitate his reputation.

  He was a sturdily built, rather short man of fresh complexion, with brown hair and beard, and dark intent eyes which certainly did not lack determination, though they may have lacked the self-certainty of a leader. At the time of the Armada his reputation stood high. Not only was he the largest and richest feudal landowner in Spain, but his career up to this time showed him to be a man of ability and distinction. He had served in several military capacities, and had led troops into battle on two occasions – though the occasions as it happened had not resulted in much fighting. He had been responsible for fitting out the Spanish fleets which sailed to the Indies and the Magellan Straits; and for two years he had been active behind the scenes helping with preparations for the Armada. On many of the most vital questions of recruitment, provisioning and finance his advice had been constantly sought by the King and followed. He was probably the best administrator in the kingdom.

  We know that other names were considered along with his, among them the Duke of Savoy and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Juan Martinez de Recalde suggested his own appointment. In his well-known letter to Philip asking to be relieved of the honour of leading the Armada, Medina Sidonia, after listing the reasons for his own unworthiness, suggested as a substitute Don Martin de Padilla, Adelantado of Castile.

  Padilla, who had been a group commander at Lepanto and had had a distinguished fighting career, was later chosen by Philip to lead the Second and the Third Armadas of 1596 and 1597. It is stated by Duro that he offered the King a thousand men for the First Armada, with wages paid for six months. But it is possible that in 1588 Padilla was under something of a cloud, for, although the actual commander of the galleys that fought Drake was Don Pedro de Acuña, Padilla was Captain-General of the galleys of Spain, and so bore over-all responsibility. It is usually the case, if some part of a nation’s services fails, that the man in charge bears some of the odium, however little it may be deserved. So Padilla was left in the Mediterranean to keep an eye on the Turks.

  I. A. I. Thompson has recently put forward some additional reasons for Philip’s choice of Medina Sidonia in 1588. Portugal, only recently conquered, was growing very restive under the burden of the Armada preparations with its ruinous demands on their shipyards and their grain supplies. Whereas Santa Cruz was hated, Medina Sidonia was popular in Portugal, his wife being half Portuguese and his grandfather having been on terms of close friendship with the Portuguese royal family. The Duke was also known in England and had friends among the Catholics there, and if England should collapse it was essential to have someone apart from Parma to represent the King on the spot. The Duke was also a man of the highest reputation and honour, and with him as leader many would flock to follow him, not merely his vassals and dependants but adherents and friends, and even strangers, knowing of his financial repute.

  And of course there was the money. If one takes the value of the maravedi at this time as being roughly five hundred to the pound sterling, and multiplies by forty to bring nearer present-day standards, one can estimate that the Duke of Medina Sidonia contributed about £650,000 – or about $ 1,600,000 – to the cost of the Armada out of his own pocket. No other could have done so much.

  Indeed, whatever he thought later, Philip may not have been too upset at the time in having to make this vital change in the leadership of the Empresa. Philip’s dry comment when he heard that the Marquis of Santa Cruz had died was, ‘God has shown me a favour by removing the Marquis now rather than when the Armada has put to sea.’ He does not sound heart-broken or appalled. In fact from the inception of the Enterprise Philip had worked with two difficult yokefellows. His intention was, and he had made it plain all along, that the Armada’s role should be mainly defensive and should be there only to defeat the English fleet if it attacked. Mainly its purpose was to serve as a massive covering force for the passage of his veteran soldiers under Parma into England. Parma was to take command. At the juncture of the two forces he was to become the supreme general.

  But Parma of late had been dragging his feet. Enthusiasm had given way to caution. Philip had certain suspicions of Parma. Also Santa Cruz with his sea prestige and knowledge of war might react in some unpredictable way to a crisis which arose far out of reach of the Escorial. They might indeed quarrel, Parma and Santa Cruz, and endanger the success of the Enterprise.

  Medina Sidonia was more to be trusted than either. He would obey Philip’s orders; he would do exactly as he was told; at the juncture of the fleet and the army he would gladly and modestly surrender the supreme command to Parma. But if he carried secret instructions from Philip – as Philip determined that he should – then these too would be faithfully carried out if the need arose. It looked like a guarantee against failure. At least it was a guarantee against failure to obey instructions.

  Perhaps Philip was looking for someone like Eisenhower in the Second World War – not the best general but the best generalissimo.

  So the Duke – a home-loving man and a pessimist – protesting that he was unequal to the task, went down to Lisbon, where he found chaos. It was no wonder that the Armada had not sailed under Santa Cruz. It looked as if it never would have done under him. In four short months of toil Medina Sidonia composed jealousies, abolished the worst abuses, increased recruitment, stockpiled food and ammunition, and created a central administration and something like a fleet ready to sail against England.

  So as the spring of 1588 drew on, and the windy unseasonable summer broke, the portents of conflict threw deepening shadows across Europe. It was the year of ill-omen, predicted more than a century before by Regiomontanus, the great German astronomer and astrologer, who said that in 1588, if total catastrophe did not befall ‘yet will the whole world suffer upheavals, empires will dwindle and from everywhere will be great lamentations’. These predictions had been confirmed by other learned philosophers since that time.

  A Latin verse of the time, freely translated into English, runs:

  When after Christ’s birth there be expired

  Of hundreds, fifteen year, eighty and eight,

  There comes the time of dangers to be feared

  And all mankind with dolors it shall fright.

  For if the world in that year do not fall.

  If sea and land then perish nor decay,

  Yet Empires all, and Kingdoms alter shall.

  And man to ease himself shall have no way.

  If not the end of the world, was it to be the end of England? In the Low Countries Parma after a long and bitter siege had taken Sluys and had dug fifteen miles of new canals, making it possible to haul barges to the invasion coast at Nieuport. From there one could reach Dunkirk without exposing the barges to attack from the se
a. Dunkirk to Deal is about forty miles – in good weather an easy night crossing. Parma’s troops were slowly massing in that direction, and he was assembling and having built hundreds of flat-bottomed canal barges.

  France, still ravaged by civil war, was for the time being too weak to take sides at all. Her Catholic nobles, financed by Spain, were now in control of Paris, and King Henry had fled to Blois. It meant that for the duration of the coming summer France would be completely neutralized. She could not menace Parma’s flank if he crossed the Channel and left the Netherlands weakly guarded. Nor could she aid England, even if she wished, by sea.

  As for Scotland, Parma had for two years been toying with the idea of an insurrection, led by the Earl of Morton and Colonel Semple, but this idea had been allowed to lapse. Nevertheless King James and his puritan ministers were in no position to help ‘the Englishwoman’. Scotland, whatever her true feelings, would militarily be neutral. Denmark, the then naval power of the north, was highly apprehensive of a possible Spanish conquest of England; but her King had just died, the new King was ten years old; and her offer of help, if any, was likely to be too little and too late to sway the issue.

  So it augured well for the crusade. In Lisbon the vast array of ships was weekly growing. All Europe was waiting for the coming trial of strength, and not many gave a great deal for England’s chances. Pope Sixtus, chattering away in the Vatican, remarked that it was strange that a man who was emperor of half the world should be defied by a woman who was queen of half an island.

  In that half island musters were being called and trained in villages and towns throughout the land. They were a motley lot, some armed with pikes and pitchforks, others with ancient swords or bows and arrows, all making do with what weapons they could find, like the Home Guard of 1940. Stow, in his Chronicles of England, speaks of ‘certain gallant, active and forward citizens of London, merchants and others of like quality, to the number of three hundred, who voluntarily exercised themselves and trained others in the ready use of war’. They met every Tuesday.

  From Gravesend to Tilbury Fort a chain and a bridge of boats was thrown to bar the enemy’s passage up the river and to provide a ready communication from one bank to the other so that troops could move quickly to meet a threat to the north or south. Peter Pett, the engineer in charge of this operation, was still consulting with Leicester about completing the bridge when the Armada was off Torbay.

  In the west country, where the main blow might come, five deputy lieutenants were appointed for Devon, two for Cornwall. Ralegh, as Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, was much assisted by his cousin, Richard Grenville. Throughout England old forts were repaired as best they could be in a short time and field trenches were dug. Beacons were built all along the coast and far inland. A map of the beacons erected in Kent and Sussex shows that almost every high point was utilized, so that once the alarm was given the whole countryside would be alive with tiny fires spreading the alarm. A great wave of patriotism ran through England. High and low rushed to offer their arms to the Queen. Aged noblemen got out of their beds, put on armour and led their retainers to join the army camps. It was a bad time for aliens – of whom there were many in the City of London. Ubaldino says that it was ‘easier to find flocks of white crows than one Englishman who loved a foreigner’.

  An anonymous author lists the men available in each county in 1588, the numbers trained, the numbers untrained, the weapons available, the leaders of each regiment. In sum it looks a formidable total, but spread throughout the land it is wafer-thin, a paper-bag defence capable of being punctured at any point by a strong and resolute blow. Of course, once the Spanish landed, the country would have resisted to the last breath, but it is impossible to believe that the musters, however obstinate and bravely led, could have held out at a local level against disciplined and well-armed soldiers. So long as Spain retained the vital initiative she could strike anywhere along hundreds of miles of coastline.

  The Queen was left in no doubt about the feelings of Drake. He besought her and her council in a stream of letters to allow him to descend again on the Spanish coast before it was too late. ‘If there may be such a stay or stop made by any means of this fleet in Spain,’ he wrote, ‘so that they may not come through the seas as conquerors – which I assure myself they think to do – then shall the Prince of Parma have such a check thereby as were meet … My very good lords, next under God’s mighty protection, the advantage again of time and place will be the only and chief means for our good; wherein I most humbly beseech your good Lordships to persevere as you have begun; for that with fifty sail of shipping we shall do more good upon their own coast than a great deal more will do here at home.’

  This was in March. On the 13th April he wrote personally to the Queen: ‘ The advantage of time and place in all martial actions is half the victory, which being lost is irrecoverable. Wherefore, if your Majesty will command me away …’ On the 28th April, again: ‘Most renowned Prince, I beseech you to pardon my boldness in the discharge of my conscience, being burdened to signify unto your Highness the imminent dangers that in my simple opinion do hang over us … The promise of peace from the Prince of Parma and these mighty preparations in Spain agree not well together … these preparations may be speedily prevented by sending your forces to encounter them somewhat far off and more near to their own coasts, which will be cheaper for your Majesty and her people and much dearer for the enemy.’

  Still Elizabeth hesitated. She was a woman born to hesitate and prevaricate, and thirty years on the throne had proved to her how often prevarication and delay had been her friend. There was another reason: the Queen was trying to buy Parma off by offering him the independent sovereignty of the Netherlands. It would have been a betrayal of her Dutch allies, and her Dutch allies suspected this; but it would have prevented an Anglo-Spanish conflict and would probably have terminated the war in the Netherlands, which, as it was, still had many bloody generations to run. But even if this offer failed – and she must have known that even with Parma’s emotional commitment to the Netherlands it was likely to fail – she was not altogether won over by Drake’s aggressive views. If the Armada did eventually sail, the seas were wide; might not Howard and Drake if cruising off the Spanish coast miss the Spanish fleet and allow it to reach an undefended England? (That this was not an academic objection was proved by the events of 1597, when this was precisely what happened.)

  In May, however, Drake was able to leave Plymouth and visit the Queen at court. There, with all the ebullience and confidence of his genius, he was able to bring Elizabeth to his way of thinking, and Lord Admiral Howard, though unconvinced at first, also came to accept the aggressive ideas of his lieutenant. Howard was dispatched to Plymouth to take command of the much augmented fleet there, and he arrived on the 23rd May, Drake now becoming his second-in-command in fact, as he had been since December in name. It was a situation almost bound to lead to disharmony; but from the first they worked together without jealousy or ill-will.

  Drake, throughout all the adventures which had made him the most famous commoner in the world, had always been his own supreme commander, yielding to no one, arrogant in his rightness because he had always proved to be right. Strict, religious, jolly, dynamic, beloved, he must have faced one of the sternest tasks of self-discipline to have accepted graciously the arrival of a supreme commander to take charge of his fleet at this time of all times. Howard, born to the sea but knowing himself to be looked on by the fleet as something of a figurehead, knowing that throughout the world his name and his very real naval talents meant little enough; that the Spanish if they came would come to fight Drake and that if the English lost he would get the blame, while if they won Drake would get the credit; Howard, knowing this and knowing the explosive, prideful genius of his second-in-command, must equally have shown admirable tact and self-discipline in the weeks of inactivity that lay ahead.

  For inactivity there still was, occasioned by a pitiful lack of all supplies, despite Howa
rd’s six-months-long campaign to get them; by atrocious weather that kept his ships storm-bound; by reports – true enough – that part of an Armada had been sighted off the Scillies and had been driven back by the great gales; by further impossible instructions from Elizabeth to beat up and down and try to protect the whole of the English coastline from invasion; by genuine uncertainty now as to the target the Spanish might aim at if they were already so near; and by further storms. The initiative, it seemed, was lost. Drake’s offensive plans had been agreed to too late.

  Then at last reliable information reached England that in fact the Armada had sailed, that parts of it had reached the Lizard and Mounts Bay and then all had been battered by the storm, and the great fleet was back in Coruña licking its wounds and replenishing its supplies. With the news came – wonder of wonders – permission from the Queen to move, so move they did, nearly a hundred ships, scantily provisioned, the men already having been on half rations for some time, but all so eager to be off before another countermanding order should reach them. They fled with a favourable wind, and in two days were within a hundred miles of the Spanish coast. Had the wind stayed fair there can be no doubt that there would have been a battle in or around the approaches to Coruña, for by now, after a period of depression and discouragement, the Armada and its captains had regained their resolution and were waiting a favourable wind to sail.

  But at this point the wind backed right round to the south, and Howard and Drake, having gambled on picking up extra provisions from their raids in Spain, found themselves beating into the wind, making small progress, dangerously short of supplies, and all too aware that what was an adverse wind for them was ideal for the Spanish. They could do only one thing, and this they did, which was to turn about and return to Plymouth. As they reached Plymouth the Armada began to leave Coruña.