All the Queen's Men (32 page)

Philip had presented his reluctant commander with an incredibly detailed plan of attack, but with no indication of precisely how it should be executed, and no flexibility whatsoever to vary it should circumstance demand. In many respects, the battle could be said to be lost before the Armada had even set sail, yet this strategy might have worked if vigorously pressed home by a resolute commander. Medina Sidonia was no such man. In the event, inability to maintain effective communication with Parma proved a serious handicap; furthermore, Medina Sidonia lacked the determination, experience, skill and sheer luck to succeed in fulfilling the extraordinarily difficult task that he had been set. Ultimately, it was largely his lack of good fortune that was to prove his downfall.

Drake correctly guessed the nature of the Spanish strategy and how to successfully combat it; with the Queen's authority he persuaded Howard to concentrate the bulk of his forces at Plymouth, leaving only a small squadron of ships under Lord Henry Seymour in the Straits of Dover to keep an eye on Parma. The Duke was poised just across the Channel at the head of a huge army, awaiting the Armada's arrival to assist the invasion of Elizabeth's kingdom. It was a moment of supreme crisis for the Queen and her nation: ‘This mighty enemy now knocking at our gates',
⁹
as Leicester dramatically put it. It was a time of maximum danger, a forerunner to 1805 when Napoleon was poised to launch his Grand Armée across the Channel. Napoleon was also to be thwarted by a supremely skilful naval commander and a determined English fleet. It was also comparable to 1940 when Hitler's Panzers waited to invade, but they too lacked command of the sea and were opposed by Winston Churchill. In that fateful summer of 1588 similar favourable circumstances were required for invasion, that is, suitable weather conditions, coupled with complete control of the sea. Only Elizabeth's fleet stood between the Spanish and their desired aim. ‘If the navy had not been strong at sea what peril England would now have been in,'
¹⁰
the Earl of Leicester later remarked to Sir Francis Walsingham.

One of the worst times in a war, particularly for those in command, is awaiting an expected enemy attack when all suitable preparations have been made and nothing further can be done. Tensions mount, tempers become frayed. The atmosphere in 1588 is graphically illustrated by the series of dispatches between Lord Howard aboard the
Ark Royal
at Plymouth and the Queen and her Council in London. Howard was irritated that Elizabeth, prompted by Burghley, was still pursuing peace negotiations with Parma in the Netherlands, even as the Armada sailed towards her kingdom, in the forlorn hope that hostilities might be avoided at the eleventh hour. ‘I am very sorry that her Majesty will not thoroughly awake in this perilous and most dangerous time . . .'
¹¹
fumed Howard. The following day the commander of the Queen's fleet was even more agitated: ‘For the love of Jesus Christ, Madam, awake thoroughly and see the villainous treason round about you,'
¹²
he thundered.

There was also a fundamental difference of opinion between the Queen and her Lord Admiral as to the best course of action in the prevailing circumstances. Drake had convinced Howard that he should seize the initiative and launch a pre-emptive strike against the Spanish, either in their home port or shortly after they had put to sea, when they were still many miles from the English shore. The Queen and her Privy Councillors were understandably nervous that the Armada might elude Howard's fleet and arrive off the English coast to find it undefended. Sir Francis Walsingham expressed the Queen's views in the following words: ‘She thinketh it not convenient that your Lordship should go so far to the south as the said Isles of Bayona, but to ply up and down in some indifferent place between the coast of Spain and this realm, so as you may be able to answer any attempt that the said fleet shall make either against this realm, Ireland or Scotland.'
¹³
Nothing infuriates a commander more than politicians meddling in military matters, particularly when they appear to have little idea of the true situation. Howard's withering reply was masterful: ‘I must and will obey; and am glad that there be such there, as are able to judge what is fitter for us to do than we here, but by my instructions which I had, I did think it otherwise.'
¹⁴
Howard's sarcasm caused the Queen to relent and the English fleet was authorized to make a sortie out into the Western Approaches, but was driven back to port by adverse winds. The fleet had only just returned from a second similar foray, one for which the Queen had very likely not given her permission and was probably wholly unaware. Having sailed almost as far south as the northern coast of Spain without encountering the enemy, the English were repairing and resupplying their vessels within the inner harbour at Plymouth when sensational news arrived that the Armada had been sighted off the Cornish coast. This caught Howard's fleet at a considerable disadvantage, for the westerly breeze wafting the Armada up the English Channel towards Plymouth was blowing straight into the Sound, making it impossible for Howard to sail out to meet them. An adverse tide made it equally impractical for ships to be towed or warped out either. This was a critical situation, and one which gave some credibility to the memorable tale of Drake's airy comment regarding his game of bowls, ‘There's time for that and beat the Spaniards after.'
¹⁵
Fortunately for Howard, the Armada's commander made the fundamental error of spurning a wonderful opportunity to destroy the English fleet at anchor by rigidly following his orders to sail directly up channel and not exploit this unique chance. Later that night when the tide turned the English ships managed to creep out of harbour in two separate groups. The largest group under Howard sailed boldly across the Armada's bows under the cover of darkness towards the Eddystone reef before tacking down channel in order to gain the weather gauge, while Drake's smaller force used local knowledge to take the advantage of a back eddy inshore and tack slowly westwards. Thus at dawn Medina Sidonia woke to discover English ships both to windward and behind his fleet, thereby completely losing his initial tactical advantage: ‘With great difficulty they worked out of the harbour and on Saturday got sight of them, consisting of above a hundred sail, many of great burden. . . . At nine o'clock gave them fight but did not venture among them, their fleet being so strong. The captains of her Majesty's ships behaved themselves most bravely and like men',
¹⁶
Howard reported to Walsingham. The English commander had every right to be cautious, the Armada was an awesome sight as it surged majestically up channel in a crescent-shaped formation more than two miles across, ‘the ocean groaning under the weight of them',
¹⁷
being William Camden's characteristically colourful description. Hawkins's assessment was rather more sober: ‘This is the greatest and strongest combination that was ever gathered in Christendom, and must be mightily and diligently looked into',
¹⁸
he reported to Walsingham.

Certainly the Armada appeared impressive and this was a battle that Lord Howard could not afford to lose – Elizabeth had committed her entire naval forces, and if Howard failed, then England was virtually defenceless against the might of Parma's army. The English land forces drawn up at Tilbury under the Earl of Leicester were of no real consequence and deployed in the wrong place north of the Thames, as the Spanish forces intended to land in Kent. Howard correctly judged that discretion was the better part of valour: ‘All the world never saw such a force as theirs was',
¹⁹
he later confided to Walsingham. Hostilities commenced in a rather quaint fashion. War had not been formally declared between the two nations so Howard elected to revive the old medieval custom of issuing a challenge and ordered a small vessel, appropriately named the
Distain
, to charge towards the packed ranks of the Armada and fire off a symbolic opening shot. Let battle commence. ‘Their force is wonderful great and strong, and yet we pluck their feathers by little and little',
²⁰
wrote Howard to Walsingham. The opposing fleets regarded each other warily, Howard's ships cautiously circling around the Armada while carefully assessing their relative strengths and weaknesses. The English were undoubtedly inhibited by the sheer size and numbers of the Spanish fleet and were reluctant to come too close, and it took some time for them to realize that a large part of the Armada consisted of transport ships carrying troops and weapons to reinforce Parma. These momentous events were clearly visible from the shore where William Hawkins, Mayor of Plymouth and John Hawkins's brother, together with a large crowd of citizens, used the Hoe as a grandstand, like spectators at a football match: ‘The Mayor of Plymouth to the Council. Intelligence that the Lord Admiral has engaged the Spanish fleet within sight of the town . . . he is to windward of the enemy.'
²¹
Today at the Royal Naval Barracks in Plymouth, fittingly named HMS
Drake
, huge paintings on the wall of the Officer's Mess portray ‘The Battle of Plimouth'.

The defeat of the mighty Spanish fleet did not turn out to be a single decisive battle like Trafalgar, but a series of running skirmishes, as the two fleets slowly progressed towards the Straits of Dover, the English firing mainly from long range and causing relatively little damage. Thus, more by luck rather than judgement, the Armada arrived at its required destination virtually intact, but so was the English fleet which the Spaniards needed to neutralize for Parma's invasion force to safely set sail. Worse still, it appeared that the Duke would be unable to embark for at least another week. The confused Medina Sidonia then committed another unforced error by anchoring off Calais, enabling Howard to send in fireships. Many of the Spanish captains panicked, cut their cables and fled into the North Sea, a foolish act that was to subsequently have grave consequences for the Armada. The Spanish commander decided to continue northwards, following a brisk close-quarter encounter between the rival fleets at Gravelines off the coast of Flanders, after Howard had been reinforced by the arrival of Lord Henry Seymour's squadron which had been stationed off Dover. The Armada suffered significant losses in men and ships for the first time, while the severe pounding that so many galleons took was to have a significant bearing on their chances of survival during the months ahead.

Meanwhile, the Queen together with her Privy Councillors, her courtiers and all her countrymen could do little but await the outcome of a train of events that Elizabeth had set into motion but which was now largely beyond her control or influence. At this perilous time, when all the Channel and its coastline had become a war zone the Queen predictably rose to the occasion and was at her magnificent best. ‘It is a comfort to see how great magnanimity Her Majesty shows who is not a whit dismayed,' commented a highly impressed Robert Cecil. Elizabeth had been keen to travel to the south coast for an opportunity of seeing her fleet in action but was dissuaded by her Council as too risky a course of action. Instead she rode astride a magnificent white horse to Tilbury where she reviewed her army encamped there, accompanied by the Earl of Leicester, her Captain General. Here the Queen made a famous and highly emotional speech to her adoring troops: ‘. . . I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman but I have the heart and stomach of a King, and of a King of England too. . .'
²²
Elizabeth was in her element; she was Boadicea, the Warrior Queen, astride a white charger at the head of an army ready to defend her kingdom to her last drop of blood. Her stirring words certainly had the desired effect on the scratch body of part-time militia which was virtually all that stood between Parma's crack regiments and London, should the Armada have succeeded and an invasion of England become feasible.

Medina Sidonia then made his last and most fatal mistake. Against all odds, he had reached his planned destination with the substantial part of his fleet intact, yet ignoring the advice of his senior officers, combat veterans such as Recalde, Leyva and Oquendo, he decided to abandon his mission and return to Spain via northern Scotland and the west coast of Ireland. ‘The Spanish have taken their course towards Scotland followed by the Lord High Admiral. Although much distressed they are still of great force',
²³
wrote a surprised and highly suspicious Hawkins. The Spanish had no charts of this area and the unseasonable weather combined with a savage coastline to imperil the Armada as it struggled to return home. Most of the Spanish ships were greatly weakened with the pounding they had taken from the English guns. Many were unable to moor up anywhere because their cables and anchors had been left behind after the fireships had put them to flight off Calais. Their crews were short of food and water, completely exhausted after so many days of continuous actions. The result was a catastrophe for the Spanish, as ship after ship was wrecked off the north coast of Scotland or the south-west shoreline of Ireland where bedraggled survivors were slaughtered as they staggered ashore: ‘One man, Melaghin Mcabb, boasted he had killed eighty with his galoglas axe.'
²⁴
Soon reports were being received by the Queen and her Council that half of the Spanish fleet had perished. English army officers' treatment of the captured Spaniards was equally as savage as that inflicted on Elizabeth's sailors when falling into the hands of the Spanish – an orgy of killing took place: ‘. . . and since it hath pleased God, by his hand, upon the rocks to drown the greater and better sort of them, I will, with his favour, be his soldier for the despaching of those rags which yet remain,'
²⁵
boasted Sir William Fitzwilliam, the Queen's Lord Deputy in Ireland, in a letter to the sovereign written towards the end of 1588.

Ferocious gales completed what Howard's fleet had begun – only half the number of ships that had so proudly set forth from Spain managed to limp home, while two-thirds of their crews were either dead or captured. ‘I sent my ships to fight against men and not against the winds and waves of God,'
²⁶
lamented Philip of Spain as he contemplated the massive disaster that had befallen his nation.