The Spanish Armadas

by Winston Graham

  Yet by dawn, which was before four a.m. and further lightened by the rising gibbous moon, the English pursuit had completely broken up. Drake had quenched his light and had veered south in quest of some unknown and mysterious sails, had come with his usual astonishing nose for a prize upon the crippled Rosario and had taken her and her commander Admiral Pedro de Valdes prisoner, with all crew, forty-six guns and fifty-five thousand gold ducats intact.

  Most of the English fleet, missing his lantern, had heaved to or shortened sail, and so were far behind; but Howard in the Ark, accompanied by Lord Edmund Sheffield in the White Bear and Edmund Fenton in the Mary Rose, had closed with the Spanish fleet, in the dark mistaking their lights for the lights which Drake should still have been showing. At dawn they found themselves off Berry Head, near Brixham, and almost within the crescent of the Spanish fleet, certainly more part of that fleet than of the English, which was hull down on the brightening horizon. They had to go about sharply, into the slackening wind of dawn, to avoid being surrounded and attacked. Hugo de Moncada, commanding the galleasses, requested that he might pursue them, for he had a chance of overtaking them and holding them until the rest of the Spanish fleet closed in; but for some reason he was refused, and the three English ships escaped.

  Drake’s utter disregard of discipline, which would have ensured a court-martial in Nelson’s time, was scarcely criticized then, and we have to see it in the context of its age. He was more envied for his uncanny ability to know where a rich prize was to be taken than blamed for breaking formation in the night. After all Howard himself in the final battle of Gravelines did nearly the same thing, though not with such profitable results.

  But one thinks of Philip’s written instructions to Medina Sidonia: ‘You should see that your squadrons do not break battle formation and that their commanders, moved by greed, do not give pursuit to the enemy and take prizes.’

  If Drake has been judged more harshly since by standards which did not altogether then apply, Pedro de Valdes’s surrender was treated too kindly at the time and has been ever since. No doubt he was unlucky to lose his bowsprit and later his foremast when attempting to go to the help of another ship. No doubt he felt he had been unjustly deserted and left in the lurch as the rest of the Armada proceeded on its way. No doubt he was beside himself with anger that his cousin Diego Flores, with whom he had this continuing feud, should have been able to convince Medina Sidonia that his duty was to sail on. But about twelve hours passed between the loss of his mainmast and Drake’s arrival; some sort of repair or jury rig must have been possible in the time. No account speaks of any being attempted. And the Rosario was eleven hundred and fifty tons, one of only six ships in the Armada over the thousand tonnage; she carried, as has been said, forty-six guns, many of them the biggest cannon, capable of firing fifty-pound cannon balls and holing an enemy ship or wreaking the greatest damage if she came within range. She had one hundred and eighteen sailors and three hundred and four soldiers aboard; she had so far fired few shots. She would not be easy to handle in a beam wind but she had suffered no other hurt. Her forecastle and poop were much higher out of the water than the English, which would have made boarding a murderous business.

  Instead of fighting, Pedro de Valdes, when he found that Drake was his adversary, considered it proper that he might gracefully surrender to a man ‘whose valour and felicity was so great that Mars and Neptune seemed to attend him’. It was a knightly act, a chivalrous and courteous yielding to superior forces, and Drake accorded his enemy all the honours of war, entertained him in his cabin to dinner and presently saw him given every comfort before being conveyed to an honourable internment in England.

  Drake was always a man who believed in the full etiquette of war. When on his voyage round the globe Thomas Doughty rebelled against him and was condemned to death by Drake for mutiny, Drake took Communion with him and then entertained him to a good dinner before leading him out to the block to be executed.

  More reason here for all possible chivalry. One of the greatest galleons, surrendered without a fight! No doubt they could have pounded her for ever from a distance, but would they have had time, with Howard calling for all aid and the Armada likely to land in Torbay? Could one have imagined Drake meekly surrendering if positions were reversed? Or Recalde? Or Oquendo? Or Medina Sidonia? One thinks of the traditions of the Spanish navy summarized nearly three hundred years later by Admiral Mendez Nunez off Callao: ‘My country prefers honour without ships to ships without honour.’ De Valdes should have hanged himself.

  Chapter Seven

  The Battles in the Channel

  But the Armada was not going to land in Torbay. All day, the wind gradually dropping, it crawled across the smiling blue water of Lyme Bay towards Portland Bill, and the English fleet reassembled itself after the confusions of the night and followed.

  In the afternoon Medina Sidonia called a council and appointed Don Diego Enriquez, son of the Viceroy of Peru, to command the Andalusian Squadron in place of Pedro de Valdes. He also appointed Alonso de Leyva commander of all the rearguard, which was to consist of forty-three of the best ships of war. Recalde, his galleon still being repaired, was to be sheltered until he was fighting fit again. Medina Sidonia, aware of the risk of panic among ships exposed for the first time to the violence and rapidity of the English fire and of the disorders of yesterday which had cost him two capital ships, issued new orders. If henceforward any ship broke formation the captain would be hanged immediately. The provost marshal and the necessary hangmen were appointed and three majors were told off to each squadron to carry out the order without delay. (This order ten days later accounted for the execution of Don Cristobal de Avila, and for the arrest and near execution of Captain de Cuellar of the San Pedro.) At this time the Duke was expecting a frontal attack from Lord Henry Seymour – actually far away off Margate – so he put himself and the rest of his best ships in the van. The hulks, the supply ships and the victuallers were thus as usual protected on all sides. By retaining so tight a formation Medina Sidonia made himself most difficult to attack; but he limited his progress to the speed of the slowest. So far, from the time they sighted the Lizard they had progressed at the rate of three knots. But this infinitely slow progress did mean that the galleons with any sort of favourable breeze at all could move backwards and forwards among their flock and go to the help of any in peril.

  As Monday afternoon wore on the light airs dropped, the sails of the galleons flapped and hung motionless, flags drooped and the opposing fleets drifted gently with the tide. Only the galleasses had motive power, but Don Hugo de Moncada, smarting under his rebuff of the morning from Medina Sidonia, refused to use them in attack. It had been a brilliant day since noon, but in the long light evening a few clouds assembled to obscure the sunset and to promise a change on the morrow.

  All night the dead calm persisted, and well on into dawn. As light grew the look-outs reported that the relative positions of the two fleets were unchanged. The Armada was just east of Portland Bill. But at five a.m. a breeze sprang up; and it blew from the north-east. The change provided the Spaniards with what for two days they had been seeking, the weather gage.

  By minutes the English fleet was the first to move, and Howard swung north-west towards the land, hoping to outflank the Spanish. But this time Medina Sidonia was too quick for him and led his own squadron to intercept. Howard presently was forced to come about on the opposite tack, steering south-east, and tried instead to attack the southern wing of the Armada. Now the powerful Spanish rearguard took a hand. De Leyva in the Rata Encoronada, Bertendona in La Regazona, followed by their squadrons, with the wind in their favour, cut across the English path and fierce exchanges took place.

  In the meantime a small part of Howard’s fleet, Frobisher in the Triumph, together with five armed merchantmen, had mistaken or disobeyed Howard’s orders and had come so close in to Portland Bill that they could not weather it and dropped anchor to avoid going aground; and there th
ey were attacked by Hugo de Moncada and his four galleasses, coming into action at last. These ships in addition to their oar motive power were perhaps the best armed of any of the Spanish fleet, carrying over forty brass guns each, a large part of their armoury being fore and aft, but a considerable number of guns being mounted on the deck above the rowers, and a few even between the rowers.

  While this was going on the main battle drifted back slowly westward into Lyme Bay. Here the greatest cannonade in naval history took place, with the more cumbersome and unwieldy Spanish ships straining every nerve and every sail to take advantage of the wind and close with their English opponents. Many times it looked as if individual English ships or groups of ships would be cut off in the mêlée, but every time their superior sailing qualities got them out of trouble.

  And now the wind was beginning to hesitate and to veer. Drake, who so far had been disengaged, knew the likely properties of an easterly breeze at dawn and the likelihood of its veering later, and he had manoeuvred his squadron into a position where he could take advantage of the change. When it came he launched a sudden and fierce attack on the Armada’s seaward wing. His ships, appearing out of the smoke of battle like a new fleet, broke up the seaward wing and turned the whole battle front.

  As the wind picked up from the south-south-west the Armada began to re-form to meet this new attack. It had attempted two things – to isolate Frobisher and to bring Howard to battle. Now a third front had opened, and in the early exchanges many of the Spanish ships suffered. Recalde, who could not be kept out of any fight, again found himself isolated, and was surrounded by English ships which pumped shot into the San Juan. Medina Sidonia, who saw that Howard was going to take advantage of the change of wind to rescue Frobisher, now directed his Portuguese galleons and five others, himself in the van, to intercept this move; but, suddenly informed of Recalde’s plight, and seeing that all except his own galleons were to leeward of Recalde and therefore unable to lend immediate aid, he instructed the whole of his squadron of fourteen large galleons to go to Recalde’s aid, and alone in the San Martin continued on his course to intercept Howard. He thus presently found himself isolated from the rest of his fleet and bearing down alone upon the Ark, the Elizabeth Jonas, the Leicester, the Golden Lion, the Victory, the Mary Rose, the Dreadnought, and the Swallow. Although he saw himself likely to be surrounded, the Duke would not bear away and attempt to escape from a squadron flying the Lord Admiral’s flag, so he came up into the wind and backed his foretopsail, inviting the English to grapple and board.

  It was the conventional, the knightly thing to do; but the day for such gestures was over. Howard came no nearer than to bring the galleon within the range of his guns, and as he passed he discharged broadsides into the San Martin. Again sailing in line – the new order which was to become the classic order for centuries to come – the rest of his squadron did the same. Then they wheeled about and came back. In the meantime, Drake, having withdrawn before the might of the Portuguese galleons coming to Recalde’s aid, had doubled round them and he too came to attack the San Martin. The Spanish flagship was blazing away with all her forty-eight guns, but it was nearly an hour before she could be rescued, by which time the holy standard had been ripped in two, her masts were damaged, and torn rigging was hanging among the dead and wounded on her decks.

  Long before the San Martin was finally extricated, Howard and his squadron had left her to Drake and had gone on to rescue Frobisher. How far Frobisher wanted to be rescued is a debatable point. He and his London merchantmen, after a fight, had finally dealt with the four big galleasses. The English shot was not sufficiently heavy to hole the galleasses, but their aim had been directed at the rowers, who had been cut down in swathes, and the galleasses had broken off the fight before Howard arrived.

  If Medina Sidonia instead of attempting two objectives had swung round as soon as he saw Frobisher isolated, and, after leaving a screen to ward off Howard, had set about the destruction of the six embayed ships, there might have been a different story to tell, for Howard could hardly have kept his distance while the six ships were destroyed. But it has been suggested that Frobisher, hard-bitten, sea-wise and as pugnacious as Recalde, may just as deliberately have offered himself as a prize in order to lure the main Spanish fleet into the treacherous waters of the Portland Race and the Shambles. Whatever his secret purposes, if any, in becoming so surrounded, his fight with the galleasses made him the hero of the day.

  In the first light airs of Wednesday’s dawn a Spanish straggler was discovered, the Gran Grifon, the flagship of the urcas, which during the night had drifted out of the protective range of the rest of the fleet. She was a ponderous, moderately powerful but slow-moving vessel; and she was immediately attacked by Drake, who had shown his usual ability to be in the right place at the right time. A considerable action blew up, with Recalde again in the fray, and Bertendona and Oquendo. After damage on both sides the Gran Grifon was eventually rescued by one of the galleasses which took her in tow, and Drake and Howard then withdrew before the approach of Medina Sidonia and his Portuguese galleons. Although the action lasted for less than two hours, it seems to have been at closer quarters than on Tuesday. The Gran Grifon was quite badly damaged, with forty of her crew killed and an unknown number wounded, and Drake lost his mainyard and a number of men.

  (Perhaps it should be mentioned here that all through the Armada battles the English understated their losses in personnel, for the simple reason that if a ship reported, say, ten men killed, a due proportion of victuals and back pay was automatically deducted from the next meagre allowance.)

  But, after that early morning battle, there was little further action on Wednesday. All day in light airs and fitful breezes, the Armada continued its slow, stately progress up channel towards the Isle of Wight. All day the English fleet shadowed it. Howard held a council-of-war in the afternoon, and for the first time divided his fleet properly into squadrons. Howard himself, Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher were the natural choice for command. Until now it had been something of a free-for-all on the English side; ships more or less followed whom they liked; Drake’s friends kept close to him, and any others who saw Drake’s flag and fancied his leadership did the same. Now the English had learned the value of grouping from the Spaniards, and some order began to appear in the fleet. They were coming bitterly to appreciate the fact that the better discipline of the Spaniards was preventing them from breaking up the Armada or indeed seriously damaging it. So far two vessels only had fallen out after all this fighting; and neither had been from enemy gunfire. The Armada was scarred but intact.

  The English were almost out of shot, and still short of men and ordinary victuals. Howard in his Relation of Proceedings speaks of the enormous expenditure of great shot on the Tuesday and says that although the musketeers and the harquebusiers (who fired a heavier type of musket) were discharging their weapons as rapidly as they could, the sharper bark of the hand weapons could never be heard because of the rapid firing of the cannons and the culverins. Sir George Carey writing to the Earl of Sussex says: ‘ The shot continued so thick together that it might rather have been judged a skirmish with small shot on land than a fight with great shot on sea.’ Both fleets indeed had blazed away in the heat of the first engagements as if ammunition were unlimited. ‘ We sent,’ writes Howard, ‘divers barques and pinnaces on to the shore for a new supply of such provisions.’

  But a nation which had been at peace within its own boundaries for over a hundred years could not produce powder and shot anywhere for the asking. Some ammunition was ferried out from Portsmouth, Weymouth, and the little towns along the coast, but there was never enough, scarcely enough for another major engagement. Indeed without the ammunition salvaged from de Valdes’s Rosario there might not have been enough to go round at all. Meanwhile Howard’s fleet was constantly being reinforced by volunteer vessels which were emerging enthusiastically from all the little harbours. But their presence was an embarrassment rather t
han a help to the main fleet, which could really make no use of them in a fight against a close-knit and disciplined enemy who proceeded on his way and protected his weaker ships within a hard ring of galleons.

  As for the Spaniards, they had been provided by Philip with one hundred and twenty-three thousand round shot of varying sizes and five hundred and seventeen thousand pounds of powder. It should have been enough for all emergencies. And they had ample yet. They were more than half way up the Channel; but these constant running fights were eating into their supply. And unlike the English they were on an unfriendly coast. As they neared the Isle of Wight Medina Sidonia sent off messages to Parma, telling him of his approach and requesting that new supplies of powder and shot should be made available to him when they linked up.

  The Spanish even more than the English were guilty of firing too often while out of range. Most of the engagements so far had taken place at a range approximating to an average par-4 hole at golf. At this distance the English ships were just out of effective range of the heaviest fifty-pound balls that the Spanish guns could fire, and it would have been a great tactical stroke for the Spanish to have refrained from firing them, once it was seen that they were not reaching their mark. But it would have required a superhuman restraint which would have been psychologically impossible. To wait until you can see the whites of their eyes is good tactics when the other side is getting ever nearer. The English never got nearer. They continued to turn away and refuse all contest at close quarters.