Armada Ahead

The greatest sailing-fleet ever assembled

This Naval History continues on from: "Pre-Armada"

The Portuguese were Europe's first sailors to reach out into the open world of commerce venturing into the Far East. And then returning home with their merchant ships crammed with Oriental spices and merchandise. Until they were conquered by the Spanish.

In the Americas the Spanish overwhelmed countries and then went back with their riches to Spain. The Spanish Empire expanded until it was the greatest in the world. They appeared to want to try and command all the lands, seas and oceans.

To such minds as Drake. He thought it was rational and right to fight for your countries economic interests. Such ideas were the cause of clashes between European fleets, mainly the English and the Spanish, which were often hard fought and to the death.

The Spanish Armada was the first effort by a continental military power to try to establish an European supremacy.

Pre-Armada

Queen Elizabeth I

After she ordered Mary Tudor to be beheaded; if she, Elizabeth Tudor was to rule England at all, she had to win the love of her people because there was nothing else she could depend on. There was no way the new Queen could govern the unruly English by force. She had none.

She ruled them by the arts by which a clever woman rules her lover. How much art there was in her conduct, and how much nature, a mere historian cannot be expected to say.

On the seas, England was independently going about her business. Strong at sea she remained for centuries, and recognised as a strength not to be challenged without risk. In any enterprize of the nature of war, there is to be in victory a risk even greater than in defeat.

With the Armdad ahead, and not knowing where or when to expect the great Spanish Fleet's attack. The unseasonal weather and inadequate stores worried the English captains as much as it did the Spaniards.

The Queen's ships, all in full commission by April, were provisioned a month at a time and no more until the last supply had almost ran out.

Rumour had it the Spaniards were coming

Each month the rumours were growing stronger that the Spanish had set sail. It was common knowledge they would, but when no body in England knew?

It was not the lack of money or the will to spend it, it was the lack of facilities and organisation to provide a very considerable amount of food and drink, to be kept aboard ship for months.

The size of the stores now required was unpresidented, because it had never been needed in such large quantities before, had the idea been percieved then steps would have been taken to solve the problem before it started.

To keep a great fleet supplied with rations for months ahead, requires an organisation. It was not something you could improvise on the spur of the moment.

El Draque was keen to meet his enemy

With the coming of spring Drake was impatient to be off again.

He had heard that between four and five hundred ships manned by eighty-thousand mariners and soldiers were in the harbour at Lisbon. He believed it would be better to try and stop the Spaniards in their own waters.

With his fleet he wanted to blockade the harbour entrances all along the coast, so that the Spanish fleet could not get out of the rivers with any comfort, or if it did come out he would attack it so that it would not reach England.

He believed it was safer to fight far from home than near it, and what must be avoided above all was letting the Armada get into the Channel where it could be joined by Parma and his army in their ships.

His confidence that he could do all this with fifty ships, was because he was aware what great fear his name inspired all along the coast of Spain.

The terror of his name put great fear into many Spaniards, it was his chief reliance. He certainly believed, and he had some reason for believing it, with El Draque on their coasts the Spaniards would never dare sail for England.

He could combine a profitable summer of free-booting at sea and ashore with a game of hide-and-seek with the Spanish fleet. The sort of game he played to perfection.

Elizabeth would not let Drake do it his way

Elizabeth indicated her unwillingness to grant his request. As it so happens the Spanish were hampered by the unseasonal weather, it prevented them from moving and remained immobile in the mouth of the River Targus.

It seems unlikely that Drake could have got as far as Lisbon in such weather, unlikely he could have cleared Land's End, if he could have got out of Plymouth Sound.

Hawkins had always been of the same opinion as Drake, along with most of the navy board, and the senior commanders. Finally, reluctantly, the Queen herself began to consider that the fighting men might be right, and that the advantage and place might be found on the coast of Spain.

Drake may have been wrong? The Spanish had orders not to be diverted by an English offensive, but to sail for the Channel and rendezvous with Parma no matter what Drake did.

If Drake had relied upon the alarn caused by his appearance on the coast of Spain, he might have missed the Armada altogether.

English ships and English seamen being what they were, barring some peice of bad luck it seems unlikely that Drake's squadron could have been badly hurt. On the other hand, unless he was favoured by some remarkable accident it seems equally unlikely that with fifty ships or even more, Drake could have done much to delay the Armada's advance.

The largest Sailing-Fleet ever gathered

Wisdom after the event is easy, but in the Spring of 1588, none of the naval experts on either side foresaw much of what was to come. The size of the forces involved and the nature of their armament were unpresidented.

No naval campaign in previous history, and none until the aircraft-carrier, involved so many and incalculable factors.

Lord Admiral Howard, was the commander of the Queen's fleet. Perhaps the Queen much as she admired Drake, felt that with Howard in charge the operation would be less likely to turn into a buccaneering expedition.

Or perhaps she merely took a sensible view that it ought to be as strong as possible.

Modern-day Pages Fast Boats Pages Joe Wezley Pages

The Spaniards set sail for 'Cape of Margate'

Drake accepted gracefully the post of Vice-Admiral, which Howard bestowed upon him, and during the next few months at sea, there was no trace of friction between them. Even though he might have felt dissapointed.

Howards arrival at Plymouth and the ceremony of Drake's hoisting his flag a Vice-Admiral of combined fleets did not take place until 23rd May, old calendar, 2nd june new calendar.

On that day the great Spanish fleet had sailed about thirty nautical miles north of the rock of Lisbon. Though no one in England knew that they were at sea yet.

All over Europe they would watch the battle in the Channel with breatless suspense, because upon its outcome was felt to hang not just the fates of England and the Spanish Empire, but those of Scotland, France and the Netherlands, and other countries also.

The continuation of this Naval History will be: "Armada Embarks"

Armada Ahead Armada Embarks

"Pirates Trilogy" $20