Partly because of these dissensions, they just missed a fleet of thirty carracks carrying something like ten million ducats’ worth of treasure. Drake was bitter about this, but had they met them they would also have encountered twelve of Spain’s best galleons which sailed as escort, so the misfortune might have cut both ways. Then when they reached Las Palmas they found the fortifications of the town so strong and newly developed that they had to call off the attack and sail for the Indies, having watered on the other side of the island but without further provisions.
It was the end of October before they reached Guadeloupe, and there they lost one of their smaller ships, the Francis, which had been lagging behind and was captured by five of the new fast and well armed galleyzabras. News of Drake’s coming therefore preceded him to Porto Rico, where an attempt to land failed with the loss of many men and several of his best officers. At the same time Sir John Hawkins, who had been a sad man and failing throughout the voyage, died; and this cast a deep gloom over an expedition which was as thoroughly pursued by bad luck as so many of Drake’s earlier enterprises had been by good.
Leaving Porto Rico, the fleet now made a succession of other raids on the way to Panama; some modestly successful, some repulsed by the new defences. Where they were not repulsed, a scorched earth policy deprived them of most of the booty. Unimpeded by any Spanish fleet attack, for his name was still dreaded everywhere, Drake at last reached Nombre de Dios, where the fort was taken, the town burned and the shipping seized. Baskerville was sent overland with seven hundred and fifty men on the old Panama road, but after three days in constant wet weather, which ruined his supplies and rendered his muskets useless, he came on hills and a ravine heavily defended by Spanish troops and knew his march to be useless. He could only retire to the ships, which he did by the 2nd January and so ended yet one more of Drake’s hopes.
There was nothing now to do but go on and try to find some treasure somewhere to carry home, but at Escuda de Veraqua, an island near the coast, so many of the crews were ill with dysentery that barely enough were left to man the ships. Then Drake took it, and, in order to find healthier air, the defeated fleet again put to sea. At sea on the night of the 27th January 1596, Sir Francis Drake died. He was buried three miles off the town of Puerto Bello, and so many others were sick or dead that his prizes and two of his own ships had to be sunk over his grave so that enough sailors were left to man the rest home.
It is probably true that Elizabeth never fully forgave Drake for his failure to destroy the remnants of the first Armada in Santander in 1589, for, although she allowed him to go on this final raiding venture and provided him with some of her excellent smaller ships, she did not reserve him to lead or assist in the much bigger venture which was being planned for 1596. This had not, of course, been approved when Drake sailed. In typical Elizabeth fashion it was not approved until the last minute, though it had been in the air long enough and indeed in preparation.
What brought it to sudden implementation was the turn of events in France. Henry IV was now king in more than name, and his war against Spain had prospered to the extent that only in Brittany and Picardy and parts of Normandy were the Spanish still established. But there were endless disagreements between the Allies, and the French people were impoverished and heartily sick of war. There was talk of the Pope mediating and negotiating a separate peace between France and Spain. Into this situation came the Archduke Albert, fresh from Philip’s council and the strongest man in Spain. Injecting new life into the Spanish army of the Netherlands, he began to move towards the Channel ports. This caused alarm both in France and in England; but in reply to Henry’s urgent request for more English help, Elizabeth said that she could only do this if in return the French would give Calais into English keeping. It was an answer which bitterly annoyed Henry. ‘ I would as lief be bitten by a dog as scratched by a cat,’ he observed.
As indeed he was, for while both countries were hanging back waiting for the other, quietly confident anyway that Calais was in no immediate danger, the Archduke switched his direction and sent a flying column north under de Rosne. Calais was quite unprepared for the attack, its fortifications almost in ruins and its garrison inadequate. By the 17th April the Spanish were in the city, and a week later they took the citadel and massacred its defenders. Later they fanned out south, taking Ardres and Guisnes. This brilliant coup struck dismay into all three of the allies, but particularly into England; for Spain at last had its Channel port available for a future Armada.
At first it seemed probable that the projected fleet being made ready to attack Spain on her own coasts would be cancelled; but on the 24th May, Elizabeth signed a new treaty with Henry, and from then on, saving the customary vacillation, there was no pause until the fleet sailed.
This was another ‘joint’ command, the Lord Admiral Howard himself sharing it with Lord Essex. There was a slight but wise division of responsibility in that the former was given precedence at sea and the latter on land. The fleet consisted of forty-eight fighting vessels, including some of the finest warships, and eighty transports and victuallers. It was divided into five squadrons: the first under Howard, again in the Ark Royal of eight hundred tons; the second under Essex, in the Due Repulse; the third under Lord Thomas Howard in the Mere Honour of nine hundred tons; the fourth under Sir Walter Ralegh in the Warspite; the fifth, a Dutch squadron under Admiral Van Duyvenvoord, Lord of Warmond, in the Neptune. It will be noticed that the names of ships built since the Armada were beginning to appear on the English side too. Both Due Repulse and Warspite were brand-new ships, launched only that year and the last to be laid down in Elizabeth’s day. The tonnage of the Due Repulse was seven hundred and seventy-seven and of the Warspite six hundred and forty-eight. About six thousand five hundred troops sailed under Sir Francis Vere, two thousand of them veterans from the Netherlands. There were nearly a thousand gentlemen adventurers, many of them titled youths seeking fame more than fortune.
Just before the expedition was due to leave. Sir Francis Baskerville arrived off the Scillies with the remnants of Drake and Hawkins’s fleet, having fought a successful engagement on the way home with the fleet sent out by Spain to intercept him. Barely four hundred of his men were left alive. Thrilling rumours of Drake’s successes had been reaching England over the last few months, and this crushing news of the total failure of the voyage, coupled with the death of both Drake and Hawkins, was a terrible blow to English morale. This later and stronger expedition had been partly organized to cover Drake’s return.
News of Drake’s death had been greeted in Spain with overwhelming joy. Lope de Vega, who had sailed and suffered with the First Armada, wrote a poem of praise and thanksgiving; and to many a devout Spaniard it seemed that the sins they had had to expiate were now at last forgiven them. But the news had the mistaken effect of persuading the Spanish that any proposed English raid on their coasts would certainly now be cancelled, what with the death of their two greatest seamen and the threat of a Spanish-occupied Calais.
By the united persuasions of Essex, the Howards and Ralegh, and by that of Maurice of Nassau, who had a true conception of the strategy of war, Elizabeth did not change her mind, and the fleet left England on the 3rd June and in just over two weeks was off Cadiz.
It was a moment of pent-up passion for the English leaders. The triumph of 1588 was eight years behind them – already a part of history. Since then, apart from numerous successful minor ventures, the picture had been a dismal one. The utter failure of the Lisbon expedition to fulfil its primary purpose. Grenville’s death and the capture of the Revenge. Howard’s flight. Drake’s defeat and death. Hawkins’s defeat and death. A Spanish garrison seven leagues from Dover. Another one in Brittany. Spanish galleys off the Cornish coast landing with impunity and burning villages and churches and saying Mass. Another Armada partly built.
At daybreak on the brilliantly clear morning of the 18th June, while the fleet was thirty miles off Cadiz, Howard captured an Iri
sh barque bound for Waterford and learned that in the harbour were twenty galleys and sixty ships, among them four of the Apostle galleons, the San Andrea, the San Felipe, the San Tomas and the San Mateo. It was an opportunity not to be missed.
The reconciliation between Essex and Ralegh, fresh from his tremendous adventure in search of El Dorado, had been begun last year, and this year it had warmed to sincere friendship. It was fortunate that this was so, for the exigencies of the next hours was to put a strain upon tact and understanding. On the Friday Ralegh, much against his own wishes, was ordered away to try to cut off an argosy of ten ships which the Waterford captain reported had just left Cadiz for Lisbon. He returned on Monday, having run one of his quarry aground but lost the rest in fog, to find that he had not as he feared missed the attempt on Cadiz, but that it was about to begin, in a way which offended all his best tactical instincts.
Lacking the genius and the splendid arrogance of Drake, Howard and Essex had held a number of councils at which differing views had successively prevailed; then the weather had turned adverse; and now Essex was committing himself to a frontal attack with soldiers on the sea side of Cadiz where a creek called the Caleta ran into the sea. With the surf rough, all advantage of surprise lost, and four galleys drawn up inshore to oppose the landing, this was an attempt bound to result in enormous casualties among the landing troops – they were in full armour and when spilled into the sea sank like stones; and Ralegh rushed aboard the Due Repulse to try to stop the landing before the assault troops were too far committed.
It was a difficult meeting, at which Ralegh did not mince his words, and Essex at first haughtily refused to alter his dispositions, declaring it was all the fault of the Lord Admiral for refusing to force the bay until Cadiz was taken. Eventually however the vehement arguments of the older man took effect, and Essex agreed to call off the assault if Howard would admit the error of his own arguments. At once Ralegh swung down into his pinnace and was rowed across to the Ark Royal where Howard standing stiffly at the taffrail awaited him.
We do not know what charm Ralegh used on the essentially reasonable old admiral, but presently Howard agreed to a complete reversal of the order of assault, and Ralegh was back in his pinnace calling to Essex as he slid past ‘ Entramos! Entramos! we’re going in!’ Essex threw his hat in the air, and a burst of cheering broke out along the bulwarks of the Due Repulse, to be caught up by sailors on all the nearby ships. They were going in as Drake had gone in. What had been done before could be done again.
But reorganization of the ships, and re-embarking of the soldiers already in the boats, took several hours; and they missed the tide. Ralegh, having saved the precipitate and foolhardy landing, now counselled caution; there could be no surprise; then let all be got ready for the following dawn.
At ten that night in the great cabin of the Ark Royal, with the yellow lanterns gently swaying, and all the captains, generals and admirals present in their gold braid and rich velvets, Ralegh put forward his plan of attack, as if he had quietly insinuated himself into a position of supreme command. And when all had agreed his plan, the position of honour, the privilege of leading the attack, was accorded him in the Warspite.
So at first light of dawn next morning the attack began. During the night the Spanish galleons, which had been drawn up in defensive formation opposite Fort St Philip, had retired a mile or so more into the neck of the inner harbour, with the intention of blocking the entry at its narrowest point where the two pincers of land were less than a mile apart. To reach the Spanish ships the English therefore had to run the gauntlet of shore fire from Fort St Philip and from the town. The Rainbow, under Sir Francis Vere, trying to catch the wind nearer the Cadiz shore and so steal ahead of her larger rivals, was the first to come under fire, and she had her sails shot to ribbons. Warspite was the next to receive attention, but the range was greater and she suffered no hurt. Ralegh ordered his trumpeters to blow a triumphant blast on their trumpets every time the batteries fired.
It would be satisfactory to record that some of the naval discipline reluctantly adopted by the English captains during the later stages of the Armada fight remained with them in 1596; but in fact each captain was so eager to get at the enemy that he looked on every other captain with a sort of angry rivalry. These were huntsmen, leaping every fence, taking every risk, and jostling each other dangerously to be in at the kill.
The fair channel at its narrowest point between Puntal and Matagorda was almost blocked by the four Apostle galleons, anchored head to stern across the passage, and behind these were two Portuguese galleons, three Italian armed merchant ships and a group of Levanters. Three of the galleyzabras – out of their element in a battle in such a confined space – were in the shallower water of St Mary Port, and a group of galleys lurked under the protection of Fort St Philip. Into this defensive formation the whole weight of the English fleet crashed: Ralegh in the lead by half a ship’s length in Warspite from Lord Thomas now in Nonpareil, Sir George Carew in Mary Rose, Sir Robert Southwell in the Lion and Sir Conyers Clifford in the Dreadnought. Ralegh made first for the San Felipe, ‘ being resolved,’ as he wrote later, ‘to be revenged for the Revenge or to second her with mine own life’.
Like the others, Ralegh had been forbidden to hazard a Queen’s ship by boarding – this was to be left to fly-boats later – but after a heavy exchange of broadsides lasting two hours Ralegh stormed across to see Essex, demanding that this prohibition should be lifted. Essex agreed and said he would go in with him. But in the twenty minutes Ralegh had been away his rivals had stolen up on him. Vere, coming up in the tattered Rainbow, had slid around ahead of the Warspite; also Lord Thomas Howard in Nonpareil. So Ralegh ordered Captain Oakes to up anchor and seize the initiative again, even at the risk of going aground and losing his ship. Then Due Repulse, forcing a way in, collided with Dreadnought, and both ships were out of the fight for half an hour. In the confusion Ralegh dropped his anchors again so that he swung athwart the tide and so sheltered the others from the fight, but Rainbow and Nonpareil threw lines aboard him and warped themselves into the front line again. ‘ The shooting of the ordnance was great,’ wrote Vere, ‘and they held us good talk by reason their ships lay athwart with their broadsides towards us, and most of us right ahead, so that we could use but our chasing pieces.’
In the three-hour battle Warspite suffered the most of the English ships, but the Spanish were in much worse shape. All had been holed repeatedly and many of their guns fell silent, either put out of action or for lack of crews. As the English edged nearer, the Spanish galleons at last slipped their cables and began to drift further inshore. Within a matter of minutes both the San Felipe and the San Mateo had grounded, ‘tumbling into the sea heaps of soldiers,’ wrote Ralegh, ‘so thick as if coals had been poured out of a sack in many portholes at once; some drowned and some sticking in the mud.’ Both these fine galleons were fired by their captains to avoid capture, and presently blew up: ‘… many Spanish drowned themselves; many, half burnt, leapt into the water; very many hanging by the ropes’ ends by the ships’ sides, under the water, even to the lips; many swimming with grievous wounds, stricken under water and put out of their pain, and withal so huge a fire and such tearing of the ordnance in the Great Philip … if any man had a desire to see Hell itself, it was there most lively figured.’
This was virtually the end of the sea fight, but in the last minutes of it Ralegh was wounded in his leg, which was ‘interlaced and deformed with splinters’ – and would limp from it for the rest of his life – so he took no part in the storming of the city of Cadiz: a wonderful but bloody exploit in which Essex, Vere, Bagnal, Savage, Morgan and others performed prodigies of valour. Sir John Wingfield, one of the most daring of the leaders, was killed as the last of the resistance was collapsing. But many of the inhabitants fought bitterly from house to house – one of the most ruinous of all forms of war. One enormous Franciscan friar killed nine Englishmen before being overwhelmed. Orders had
been given by Essex that there was to be no burning of the city, and although a few soldiers inevitably got out of hand on the first night, this was brought under control, and two men were hanged for molesting a woman. Priests and churches were spared and fifteen hundred nuns were permitted to leave – even politely assisted to. ‘Such a gentleman,’ said Philip when he heard, ‘has not been seen before among heretics.’
On the night of the conquest Ralegh had himself conveyed by his men into the city. All along he alone of the commanders was concerned with the treasure-fleet, which had retreated into the Port Royal basin. He tried to find Howard to convince him of the necessity of seizing the ships at once, but Howard would not split his forces, and since there was no way out of the harbour except past the narrow entrance where the English ships and the Spanish wrecks lay, he felt they could wait. While the flota was being bargained for on the following day the Spaniards fired the fleet. Thirty-six vessels were destroyed and treasure valued at twelve million ducats was lost. The loot of Cadiz, enormous though that was, was trifling compared to this. It was a tragic loss to England, a supreme sacrifice on Spain’s part. The King approved it but the merchants concerned were bitterly antagonized: they would rather have paid the ransom.
The English remained in full possession of Cadiz for two weeks, debating whether to stay in permanent occupation or to go. They buried Sir John Wingfield with full military honours in the cathedral, while the whole fleet fired guns and dipped flags in salute. John Donne, who was with the expedition, wrote a poem on Wingfield’s gallant death. The following day they held a state banquet in the Friary of St Francis, and in Stow’s words: ‘After dinner they made a great many knights, even all almost that did deserve it or affect it or not neglect or refuse it (as some did).’ In all sixty-four officers were knighted. In the Armada Howard had knighted only five. Essex’s prodigality in honouring his friends was a continuous source of irritation to Elizabeth.