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enemy "gathered their whole fleet into a roundell", and bore away eastwards. Howard now divided his array (finally numbering some 130 units) into four squadrons under himself, Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher; but the tactical arrangements on both sides were tentative and elementary. Certain it is that the brunt of the fight fell on the twenty-three large royal ships which daily plucked Sidonia's tail feathers, until it was a morally beaten force which cast anchor off Gravelines. Meanwhile Parma's light craft (little better than river boats) could not beat out of Dunkirk and Nieuport against the prevalent westerly winds,1 which for the time rendered needless the presence of English and Dutch blockaders. Thus, after sacrificing a good chance of victory off Plymouth in order to gain touch with Parma, Medina Sidonia never caught sight of that windbound and unseaworthy flotilla. Beaten off Gravelines, he ran for the northern exit of the North Sea. Less than half of the Armada reached Spain; and the disaster sent through Catholic Europe a thrill of horror rivalling in intensity that of exultation which pulsated through England and Holland. Patriots vaunted the size and terror of the Spanish, Italian and Portuguese galleons now overcome by the smaller island craft, forgetting that the latter were better armed, better manned, and better worked, besides at the start gaining the weather gauge. But joy at the deliverance from a great fear stopped not to reason why. Enough that the Spaniards "with all their so great and terrible an ostentation did not in all their sailing about England so much as sink or take one ship, bark, pinnace or cockboat of ours, or ever burnt so much as one sheepcote of this land". Well might the Londoners, at the solemn thanksgiving of 29 November, hail Elizabeth as, under God, the preserver of the realm. Forgotten were her shifts, turns and petty economies, even her maritime strategy, as ultra-feminine as her whims and wiles. Now at last men understood her thirty years of dalliance and delay, which deferred the conflict until her patient tact had made of England a united nation, able to give stiff backing to the sea-dogs whom she had coyly reared.

The connection between Philip's invasion plan and the overseas activities of the two peoples remains to be noted. His attack on England had compelled her to recall her raiding squadrons for the defence of the realm. Consequently the Peruvian treasure-fleet, escaping all danger off the Azores, now arrived safely at San Lucar. Clearly another attack on England was the best protection of the Indies and their bulwark, the Azores. "If" (wrote Lippomano, Venetian ambassador at Madrid) "the Azores were captured, that would be the end of the Indies; for all ships have to touch there."2 Pride and prudence, therefore, counselled another offensive, which seemed the easier owing to the failure of Drake's and Norris's attempt

1 Cal. St. Pap. Spanish, 1587-1603, pp. 245, 355, 371.
2 Cal. St. Pap. Venetian, 1581-91, nos. 770, 775, 788.

EFFORTS AGAINST THE SPANISH FLOTA

123 on Corunna and Lisbon (1589). Drake's ships arrived in the Tagus "with not enough men [i.e. soldiers] fit to attack a boat", and Drake had to withdraw to the open, there consoling the shareholders of this joint-stock venture by capturing "eighty Hansa hulks". Elizabeth vented her spleen on Drake by slighting him and leaving him unemployed during five years. Such was the year 1589-a drop from the sublime to the stock-jobbing.

Philip's great preoccupation now became the defence of the Azores, to which focal point his new Catholic Armada of forty great and twenty small ships finally sailed.1 For him the issue of the war turned on the arrival of the annual treasure-fleet bringing what Mun terms "the very sinews of his strength". After it arrived in November 1589 there was great activity in the shipyards, eleven galleons on the English model and nine on the Portuguese model being constructed in the Biscay ports.2 Again in September 1590 the flagship of the East India fleet arrived bearing great riches. Thereafter the West India flota from Havana arrived safely with a vast sum (March 1591). The total amount brought by the treasure fleets to Spain in this war is not known; but the well-informed Venetian ambassador at Madrid estimated that between August 1587 and November 1600 they had imported a sum equal to 108,240,000 millions of gold (i.e. ducats), or about £29,766,000.3

As Philip did not strike directly at England, our privateers resumed their activities, but with small results. The Earl of Cumberland with four ships in 1589-90 seized some valuable ships, but not the fleet which he sought. Frobisher with four of the Queen's ships fared little better; for he brought back safely to port only two out of several prizes; these two were worth £15,000, but the expedition had cost Elizabeth £11,320—a sad falling off from the golden days. Our privateers did not spare the Germans and Dutch, so that in 1590 we were branded as the enemies of the world.5 In 1591 the Queen speculated on the luck of a new man, Sir Thomas Howard, cousin of the Lord High Admiral, who was to sail to the Azores on the "Grand Quest". But Philip, hearing of the design, sent out a great fleet to surprise Howard. Off Flores the Spaniards nearly caught him, and his second in command, Sir Richard Grenville in the Revenge, refusing to flee, fought that epic fight against fifteen warships in succession, which left him and his ship stricken to a glorious death. Not Howard but the elements conspired to avenge Grenville. On the battered and worm-eaten Spanish ships, many of which had been detained a year in the West Indies, there burst a tempest fatal to most of them— a loss to Philip almost as great perhaps as that of the Armada of

1 Ibid. nos. 836, 863, 873, 968.

* Ibid. nos. 894, 898, 899.

3 Monson's Tracts, 11, 339-40 n.

4 Ibid. 1, 239.

Б Fugger News Letters (2nd series), p. 208; also pp. 219-21, 235-43.

1588. By good fortune Howard escaped the storm; but thenceforth Elizabeth lost her taste for these western ventures, which were risky now that Spain protected the Indies by fleets and forts.

As for Englishmen, they were still attracted by privateering more than by colonisation, which indeed was unsafe while the Spaniards, with greatly improved ships, contested the mastery at sea1 and gained ground in northern and western France. The danger to our coasts was obvious in 1595 when from Blavet in Brittany an enterprising Spanish captain, Amerola, with four galleys, raided and burnt Mousehole, Newlyn and Penzance. Elizabeth's retort, hesitatingly adopted in August, of loosing Drake and Hawkins on the Indies, was a failure. The Spaniards were on the alert: the two old sea-dogs first quarrelled, then sickened, and in quick succession died near the scenes of their early glories. Near home things went even worse. Despite English help to Henry IV of France he lost ground to Parma's army and the still malcontent Leaguers. Finally Calais was in danger. At this threat England was deeply moved. With Antwerp, Nieuport and Dunkirk in the power of Spain, and Ostend and Calais in peril, an invasion of Kent by a fleet of galleys seemed an affair of weeks. At Henry IV's request Elizabeth prepared to redouble her succours to France, but only on condition of holding Calais in pledge. During these hagglings, the Spaniards took the place by storm (9 April 1596). The land power seemed now on the brink of success; for Philip's persistence and Parma's genius again menaced England with invasion and pinned her to the defensive. How should she recover the initiative, which in war compels success? Fortunately the memory of Drake's exploit at Cadiz inspired in Essex and Raleigh his indomitable resolve to forestall, not to await, attack. Wayward and inconstant in their enterprises, these two favourites of the Queen possessed the priceless gift of warlike imagination; and to the lunge of the Spaniard at Kent they dealt the riposte at Cadiz. The secret of their design was well kept. Under the Lord High Admiral, Howard, served Essex, Lord Thomas Howard and Raleigh. The expeditionary force comprised forty-seven warships and transports carrying over 6000 troops. By mid-June it was ranging the coast of Spain, carrying with it a rising surge of terror. "The Spaniards" (wrote Nani, Venetian ambassador at Madrid) "would not believe that after the death of Drake and the scattering of his squadron, coupled with the loss of Calais, the English would think of moving to any great distance to harass their neighbours."2 Would the fleet seize the Bayona Isles, enter the Tagus, or make for the Azores and the treasure-fleet? It made straight for Cadiz.

On 20 June Howard struck swift and hard. The city fell to Vere's veterans from the Dutch wars, and was held for a fortnight, while

1 Monson's Tracts, IV, 66-78.

2 Cal. St. Pap. Venetian, 1592-1603, no. 431.

EXHAUSTION OF SPAIN

125

Xeres, San Lucar and Seville trembled in expectation of the like fate.1 At Madrid, the drum was beaten "to raise troops for the imminent peril of this kingdom". Not more than 2000 harquebuses and muskets could be found, despite search in private houses; and the terrible truth was laid bare that, while Philip conquered in France and exploited the New World, he was almost defenceless at home. Essex urged the retention of Cadiz, with himself as governor. He was overruled, perhaps from jealousy, or because the men were sickening with the heat, wine and fruit. Elizabeth (always timid in naval affairs) seems never to have contemplated holding the place, though that step, albeit expensive, would have paralysed Spain at sea and given England the mastery of the New World. On 4 July Howard sailed away, carrying off eighteen Spanish vessels full of spoils, besides those seized by the troops. Idiaquez, Philip's secretary, supplied the caustic comment "The English know how to conquer but not how to hold".2

Philip's pious persistence was proof even against this last disaster. Still bent on revenge, he appropriated the treasure brought in safely by the Havana fleet, repudiated the State debts, and laid hands on all ships in Spanish harbours. Thus, the third and last Catholic Armada rapidly took form; and in October he bade it sail, probably to help the rebel earls in Ireland. In vain did the officers beg him not to send forth this commandeered force into the autumn gales. In reply came a more imperious order to depart. They obeyed, whereupon off Finisterre a storm caught them, destroying some thirty vessels, with more than 2000 troops on board, and scattering the rest along the coast. From the ships which made Ferrol, all but 2500 seamen deserted by the new year. Therefore the hapless force never left Spain; and Parma's further victories in Picardy were fruitless. In fact, Spain never recovered from the blows dealt by the English at Cadiz and by nature off Finisterre. In May 1598 Philip made peace with Henry IV, ceding his conquests in France, including Calais. Four months later he died, and bigoted pertinacity gave place to voluptuous frivolity in the person of Philip III.

It has been necessary to review briefly these events because the persistence of Spanish efforts down to the year 1597 helps to explain why Englishmen had not before then succeeded in founding colonies. The fact was that Philip's vast resources, his possession of Flemish and French ports and his dogged resolve to strike at Elizabeth through them or through Scotland or Ireland, placed England on the defensive and aroused constant alarm. One by one his expedients failed. The French Catholics, the Irish, the Scots, his fleet-all in turn disappointed him. But not until the year 1597 was England safe from

1 Monson's Tracts, 1, 344-54; Corbett, Successors of Drake, chaps. iii, iv; Fugger News Letters, p. 280. 3 Ibid. nos. 506, 507, 519.

2 Cal. St. Pap. Venetian, 1592–1603, no. 470.

invasion. Therefore until that year privateering and not colonisation absorbed the energies of her sons. The last venture of Drake and Hawkins, also the attacks of Dudley on Trinidad, of Somers, Shirley and Parker on the West Indies, and of Raleigh and Popham on the Orinoco were little more than raids, serviceable only as exhausting Spain and advancing English seacraft. The one serious attempt at conquest, that of Porto Rico by the Earl of Cumberland with eighteen vessels, failed through lack of man-power (1597).1

Yet the Age of Elizabeth, though not formally decisive in war, spurred on Englishmen to deeds which made for supremacy at sea. Her challenging personality roused England to enterprises hitherto unimagined; and war, commerce and literature felt the ocean's tang. It adds spice to the prose epics of Hakluyt and Purchas, and inspires Drayton's panegyric of England and her Queen—

who sent her navies hence

Unto the either Inde and to that shore so green,
Virginia, which we call of her, a virgin queen.a

Samuel Daniel in his Musophilus (1599) projects his vision into the future

And who (in time) knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores

This gain of our best glory shall be sent

T'enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in the yet unformed Occident

May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?

And Bacon thus distils the essence of policy-"He that commands the sea is at great liberty and may take as much and as little of the warre as he will". So swift and yet so vital in this age was the interaction between bold deeds and inspiriting thoughts. Together they raised our people to heights never known before and implanted in the national consciousness an abiding memory and ambition.

Hitherto the war-spirit, manifested in privateering, had told against both commerce and colonisation. So far as is known, only eighty-one merchantmen of more than 200 tons were launched during Elizabeth's reign, the demand being great for swift privateers. Raleigh complained that the Dutch built far better cargo vessels, which were engrossing our carrying trade and poaching upon our valuable fisheries.4 But this was not all. With the seventeenth century dawned a new age destined to be one, not so much of romantic exploit, as of commercial exploitation. In developments in the Orient, though James Lancaster had pointed the way, the lead lay with the Dutch, who had in 1593-4 formed companies for the furtherance of their East India

1 Hakluyt, vi, 164-224, 272-356; Cal. St. Pap. Venetian, 1592-1603, nos. 566, 750. 2 Drayton, Polyolbion (Song 17). 3 Monson's Tracts, III, 431 n.

4 Raleigh,... Trade and Commerce of England with the Dutch... (1603); so too Mun, chap. xix; and Gentleman, T., England's way to win Wealth (1614), pp. 7-10.

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