The Spanish Armada (21 page)

While the Armada was being repaired and refitted, fresh food and water was loaded into its hulls and stores and munitions redistributed among the ships. A reinvigorated Medina Sidonia was not
afraid of undertaking hard work himself to set an example in urging his men onward. On 10 July, he spent six hours in the dark and dirty depths of the
Santa María de la Rosa
hold
,
helping with the stepping of a replacement mainmast. He told Philip cheerfully: ‘When it was finished, I thought we had not done badly.’
¹⁹

The captain-general also established a hospital to look after the five hundred men still suffering from fever. These were ‘progressing favourably under care and I hope, by God’s
help, that every man will
embark on the Armada’. However, others had voted with their feet. Despite Medina Sidonia’s precautions – he stationed a local
infantry company on the quayside to picket the ships – and his pledges that he would ‘not lose a single man’, the Armada’s military contingent continued to slowly seep away
through desertion.
²⁰

The commander of the Biscayan squadron, Admiral Juan Martinez de Recalde, who was recovering from an attack of sciatica, knew that for all his commander’s public display of energy and
enthusiasm, the captain-general remained ‘much vexed at having to hurry the departure’. Recalde, too, had misgivings about the king’s naval strategy and believed it was imperative
to locate a safe harbour to shelter the Armada after Parma had landed. He told Philip: ‘If it were found possible to obtain anchorage . . . in the river [Thames] itself, supported by the
army, no other reinforcements will be needed, or at least those from Flanders will suffice.’ Failing that, a West Country port such as Falmouth, Plymouth or Dartmouth, would prove
convenient:

Recalde was also worried about the problems of transporting Parma’s army across the Straits of Dover: ‘This will take some little time, as in the case of there being
a cavalry force (as I understand there will
be), it cannot be carried over in one passage and we shall be fortunate if it can be done in two.’
²¹

On 13 July, the Armada finally mustered at Corunna, totalling one hundred and twenty-nine ships, with 7,700 sailors and 18,000 soldiers embarked, augmented by two companies from the city’s
garrison. Many replacement troops were raw and untried and Medina Sidonia ordered that selected veterans should be transferred into some units ‘so that every vessel will have a proportion of
old and new men’ to stiffen their
esprit de corps
.

Other recruits appeared even less martial. Recalde despaired of the ‘young fellows’ who had been appointed captains simply because they were gentlemen. ‘Very few of them are
soldiers or know what to do,’ he complained. The medical officer of the Andalusian flagship
Nuestra Señora del Rosario
reported that some of these adventurers, having landed
in Corunna, ‘would not go forward’.
²²

There was worse to come. Four hundred Galician soldiers sent by the Count of Lemos and some of the levies from Monterey were ‘so useless that they are no good, even as pioneers’,
Medina Sidonia observed. A number of the troops were starving and appeared more dead than alive. None knew what a harquebus or musket was. ‘They are nearly all married and have large families
and are absolutely unserviceable old men. Their wives have been coming in with their troubles and lamentations to such an extent that it goes against my conscience to ship the men. I have thought
it best to send them all away and they have gone to their homes.’
²³

Undeterred by all these problems, a confident captain-general told Philip two days later: ‘With God’s help, [I] hope to have everything ready for sailing by tomorrow or the day
after, weather permitting.’ His Castilian, Guipúzcoan and Andalusian squadrons had already been towed out of harbour, together with the auxiliary squadron of
pataches
and
zabras
, and the remainder would follow the next day. The Armada’s departure depended merely on a fair wind blowing up.

Medina Sidonia ordered that tents and altars be erected on a small island in the harbour – where the Castillo San Antón was under construction – for friars to hear the
confessions of his sailors and soldiers, who were landed ship by ship, company by company.
²⁴
As a talisman, each man was given a pewter medallion
with an image
of Christ on the obverse and that of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the reverse. The act of shrivening the Armada assumed industrial proportions: already 8,000 had
been granted absolution, and the captain-general proudly informed the king that ‘this is such an inestimable treasure that I esteem it more highly than the most precious jewel I carry on the
fleet’. Cynics, however, would have noted that celebrating the sacrament of absolution on an island at least served to prevent further desertions.

Frustratingly, bad weather continued to be a factor: a strong west-north-west wind and the big Atlantic seas running into Corunna bay delayed sailing. On 19 July the Armada commanders met in the
duke’s cabin in
San Martin
to discuss tactics. It was agreed that they should sail up the English Channel in the tried-and-tested crescent-shaped formation known as the
lunula
, which had flanking horns formed by heavy-gunned warships. Again, Don Pedro de Valdés was the one dissenting voice, urging the Armada to be divided equally into a vanguard
and a rearguard with the slower transport and supply ships at its heart between the two lines of protecting vessels.
²⁵

Captain Antonio de Taso Aquereis wrote to his family in Andalusia: ‘All things are embarked. [We are] only tarrying for wind; and [it] is commanded, upon pain of death, [that] no man
[should] disembark himself.’
²⁶

On the morning of 21 July, the Armada finally departed Corunna, favoured by a light south-westerly breeze. It must have presented a brave, formidable display of Spanish naval might to the
watching (and praying) crowds perched on the headland high above the harbour, with the ships’ colours flying and the trumpets sounding raucous, piercing fanfares across the bay.

For a ‘great and most fortunate navy’ the Armada had, up to now, suffered more than its fair share of bad luck. Unfortunately, this day was to be no different.

At two o’clock, within nine nautical miles (16.65 km) of land, the wind died completely. The ships remained stationary in the flat calm, sails hanging limply from their yardarms, until
three the next morning when a brisk south-easterly wind suddenly blew up. In hoisting her sail, the galley
Zúñiga
broke the socket holding her rudder and the fleet waited
impatiently for this damage to be repaired. Almost
twelve hours later, the Armada rounded Cape Ortegal, butting into the Bay of Biscay, and Medina Sidonia set course for
England and dreams of glory.

Back in England, there was palpable tension in the air as final preparations to the defences of Elizabeth’s realm were hurriedly scrambled. A number of armed merchantmen had been hired to
augment her navy, along with ships supplied by coastal towns.
²⁷
Howard had taken his twenty-strong fleet to join Drake, his vice-admiral, at
Plymouth, leaving a squadron of fourteen queen’s ships plus sixteen vessels drawn from various ports, under Sir Henry Seymour in
Rainbow
, to guard the Straits of Dover and to
interdict any attempted crossing by Parma’s army.
²⁸

Like their Spanish adversaries, the English navy was afflicted by a grievous shortage of food. On 28 May, the lord admiral wrote desperately to Burghley: ‘My lord, we have here now but
eighteen days’ victual and there is none to be gotten in all this country.’ The wind being favourable, it was likely the Armada was on its way and if the weather held, in ‘six
days they will knock at our door’. He added: ‘God send us a wind to put us out, for go we will, though we starve.’ At Plymouth, there were ‘the gallantest company of
captains, soldiers and mariners that I think ever was seen in England. It [is a] pity they should lack meat when they are so desirous to spend their lives in her majesty’s
service.’
²⁹

In the Low Countries, the English commander Lord Willoughby pointedly reminded the rebel States General of their agreement to ‘equip certain ships at their own expense’ to join
forces with the English navy ‘in case of any enterprise of the King of Spain against [Elizabeth]’. Moreover the queen had heard of planned enemy attacks on Bergen-op-Zoom and Ostend, a
seaport ‘very destitute of supplies and fortifications’ and therefore urged the Dutch to repair the fortifications and reinforce their garrisons.
³⁰

Seemingly by a process of osmosis, Elizabeth’s government had decreed that the Thames estuary, and more specifically the eastern county of Essex, was the most likely target for
Parma’s landing. This was where her army would stand and fight. But just in case this guesswork proved wrong, a decision was taken to build a bridge of boats across the river between Tilbury
in Essex and Gravesend in Kent, to enable the army to quickly reinforce the south-east corner
of her realm. Like many of Elizabeth’s decisions, the go-ahead for the
bridge came very late in the day. Surveying work only began on 27 July.

The fort at Tilbury (like the boom of ships’ masts and chains stretched across the Thames) scarcely presented a credible defence against attack by a determined enemy – particularly
if they were armed with the siege artillery carried by the Armada. Built in 1539 by Henry VIII,
³¹
the old two-storeyed, D-shaped blockhouse was now
to be strengthened. Two encircling ditches (with drawbridges over) were excavated and a new counterscarp bank thrown up, topped by a timber palisade. The fort was designed to provide withering
crossfire against any ships sailing up the river to attack London, in conjunction with a similar structure eight hundred yards (731.52 metres) across the Thames at New Tavern,
Gravesend.
³²
However, these defences were hastily constructed and had the appearance of fieldworks rather than permanent fortifications.

New batteries were also built or proposed at Northfleet, Erith and Greenhythe in Kent, but the Earl of Leicester, appointed the queen’s general of land forces in July, found that there
were no platforms there fit to mount guns. In addition, he deemed the blockhouses at Milton and Gravesend ‘indefensible’, having been built ‘to the least purpose that I ever
saw’.
³³
Seymour suggested in the middle of June that twenty hoys from Harwich and Ipswich ‘being nimble of sail and quick in turning to
and fro’ should be stationed in the Thames estuary to forestall any landing by Parma.
³⁴
In the end, only the 90-ton
Brigandine
took
up position at the Nore,
³⁵
a sandbank where the estuary merged into the North Sea, to provide advance warning of a Spanish approach. William
Borough, whose naval career was now miraculously rehabilitated after Drake’s accusations at Cadiz, was given command of the 300-ton
Bonavolia,
the only large oared galley in the
queen’s navy, which acted as a guardship downstream from London ‘lest invaders come at half tide’. It was a scant consolation prize for all Borough’s travails.
³⁶

Walsingham, in bed ‘awaiting the recurrence of a fit’, was both angry and frustrated at Elizabeth’s stubborn reluctance to commit her finances to the defence of her nation, and
less than optimistic about England’s chance of defeating a Spanish invasion. He told
Burghley that he was sorry to see ‘so great a danger hanging over the realm
so lightly regarded and so carelessly provided for. Would to God the enemy were no more careful to assail than we to defend.’ His concerns were unconsciously echoed by Howard on 19 June:
‘For the love of God let her majesty care not now for charges.’

There remained the question of Elizabeth’s personal protection. On 2 June, the queen had ordered some of the nobility to ‘speedily put the realm in a posture of defence to resist the
attempts of Spain’ and to hold themselves in readiness to ‘attend upon her person with a . . . convenient number of lances and light horse’ at such time as the Privy Council
ordered.
³⁷
Her household servants had already been placed on alert, ready to move to a place of safety. A dozen of the principal recusants had been
speedily arrested and sent to the Tower to prevent any chance of assassination.
³⁸

Burghley, having received a copy of Allen’s venomous
Admonition to the Nobility and People of England
on 12 June from Sir Henry Killigrew in The Hague, sent this ‘vile
book’ to Walsingham, adding with a touch of bravura: ‘The Cardinal is deceived if he thinks that any nobleman or gentlemen of possessions will favour the invasion of the
realm.’
³⁹
Just to make sure, he issued a proclamation on 1 July threatening punishment, under martial law, to anyone possessing or
distributing papal bulls, books or pamphlets.
⁴⁰