Armada Going Home

The long way round

This Naval History continues on from: "Armada Catastrophe"

In August rumours of a Spanish victory spread like wildfire across the Continent, the thickest were made by the Spanish King's Lieutenant General Henry of Guise, but as the likelihood of a Spanish victory faded, slowly, the King's resistance to his dialogue stiffened.

Then in September when the fate of the Spanish Armada was realised the King dismissed all his ministers, dismissed without reproaches, no reason given; granted leave to retire to their estates; to exile and political death.

They had shown the King only the latest dispatches that were the most favourable, the ones he would be impressed with, not the dispatches that might cast doubts. Now the King was alone, his new ministers honest, industrious nonentities, people who would get on and do their work, but they were not men to talk to.

Armada Catastrophe

Saturday morning, August 13th

It was the first time in a fortnight that the Duke of Medina Sidonia did not see, the English fleet following in his wake.

The Armada ran before the south-west wind.

The time for turning back towards the Channel had long passed. However much the Duke might have preferred going down with his flagship to going home in defeat he had made up his mind that the only way he could still serve his master was to bring as many ships as possible home.

The judgement of battle was irreversible

Since entering the Channel he had lost seven first-line ships, including a galleass, and the rest of his first-raters were so sorely beaten with great-shot as to be barely seaworthy; a fifth of their men were killed or disabled, and their munitions were almost exhausted. Even moral, which had been high in the Channel, showed signs of cracking.

On the morning of the ninth more than half the fleet had ignored the signal to lie to and await the enemy. The Duke did what he could about that. He held a summary court-martial aboard his ship the "San Martin" and, on evidence that his order had been received and deliberately disobeyed, he sentenced twenty captains to be hanged.

One of the culprits, a gentleman and a neighbour of his at San Lucar, he had hanged at the yard-arm of a pinnace which was then paraded through the fleet. But it would take more than hanged men to give the fleet back its fighting spirit which it had had off of Plymouth.

From the North Sea

If there was no chance now of leading the Armada to victory, there scarcely seemed more of bringing it home. The flagship was shot through and through by culverins and demi-culverins and had one great hole just above the water-line, the work of a fifty pounder. Inspite of expert patching the "San Martin" leaked like a sieve.

Recalde's "San Juan" was in no better shape, and in addition the mainmast was to weak to carry her sails. The "San Marcos" which had fought beside the "San Martin" at Gravelines across the water from Clacton, was so knocked about that her captain had tied her up like a bundle with ropes going under the keel.

The three great Laventines wallowed every day a little deeper into the water and tended to fall a little further to stern. Indeed all of the fighting-ships were badly battered, and so were some of the victuallers who were in a very bad way.

One of them, known as "the bark of Hamburg" later went down so suddenly that her crew were saved, but her most needed stores were all lost.

Stores were the most serious problem

There was no more fresh food. Most of the biscuits were mouldy and decaying with rot, and much of the salt beef was inedibale. Though it was not likely that salt provisions would be in demand with the shortage of drinking water.

Every available cask and liquid container had been filled at Corunna; there should have been enough for three months. But again the casks leaked, and some when opened held no more than a few inches of green slime.

It was now seen how deadly was the blow that Drake had struck at Cape St Vincent, the previous year. With a long hard voyage ahead squadron after squadron reported only enough water to last, with the severest rationing, for a month or less.

De Leiva was making for Norway, Diego Flores for Ireland; but this time the Duke was supported by the rest of his generals, but without Recalde, who had taken to his bunk and was slowly dying.

The Council agreed unanimously that the fleet should go round Scotland and Ireland to the north and then, tack for Carunna.

They had decided to avoid Ireland

In the sailing orders issued to all ships that day the Duke emphasized that Ireland must be given a wide berth "for fear of the harm that may happen to you upon that coast." He took what other precautions he could.

He had all of the horses and mules thrown overboard to save water, and he ordered every man in the fleet, without distinction, to have a daily ration of eight ounces of biscuit, a pint of water and half a pint of wine, nothing more.

The Armada held its course going into the Norway Channel, running easily north-north-east before the wind sailing under moderate canvas, until the pilots thought they had reached far enough to alter the course to west-south-west which would miss the Shetlands.

Sunday 14th August

During the morning the three great Levant carracks which had wallowed so low in the water were seen to turn away eastwards, as if making in despair for the coast. They must have waited too long; they were never heard of again.

After a squall on the night of the 17th, the "Gran Grifon", captain of the victuallers, and severall of the other squadrons were missing.

The weather was misty with frequent showers, the ill-clad men, especially the Andalusians and the blacks, suffered severly from the bitter cold and the chilling winds.

They reached the place to alter course, the Duke sent round for a final muster. He was alarmed to learn that there were now three-thousand sick, besides the wounded. The water shortage too, was worse than he had expected.

Then trouble brewed

For the next two weeks there were nothing but storms from the worse possible quarter, the south-west, and baffling head winds. On Saturday 3rd September, the Duke found himself, farther east than he had been two weeks earlier.

Meanwhile seventeen ships had now parted company, including the "San Juan" with Recalde on board, de Leiva's great carrack, the "Rata Coronada" and four Levanters, four more great-ships, one Andalusian, one Castilian and two from Oquendo's Guipuzcoan squadron, several victuallers and two of the remaining galleasses.

The Duke sent off a pinnace to the King, and once more led the remnant of his fleet on the long voyage home.

Thursday 22nd September

Ninteen days later the Duke's flagship was signalling for a pilot off Santander.

In the next few days sixty-six of the ships that had sailed for England in July were reported as arrived in Spanish harbours. Only one more got back that year.

Later on it was learned, from the English Press, that the worse losses had been in Ireland. Seventeen ships, all came in without charts or pilots, often without anchors, in ships so crippled as to be barely seaworthy and with crews so weakened by hunger and disease they could barely work them, the ships split themselves on rocks, or wedged themselves on reefs, or were torn from insecure anchorages and bashed by powerful waves against cliffs.

The last to survive, the galleass "Girona" fleeing the dangers along the coast, was wrecked near the Giant's Causway with the loss of all hands.

In no circumstances was any mercy shown

Thousands of Spaniards must have drowned on that inhospitable coast. The fate of those who got ashore was even more miserable. Many had their brains knocked out as they lay stretched, exhausted on the beaches where they had come ashore.

Others wandered for a while in the desolate parts of the west until they were hunted down and slaughtered like wild beasts by parties of English soldiers who were their executioners.

One considerable group of gentlemen, surrendered on the promise that their lives would be spared, but they were later killed, by the explicit order of the Lord Deputy, Sir William Fitzwilliam.

He had less than two thousand English soldiers, to hold down a nation. He could not risk the presence of so many Spanish soldiers, even as prisoners. His simple policy was to kill them all as soon as they could be found.

The Wrecks in Ireland and around Scotland

All of the lost fighting-ships of the Armada were accounted for around Scotland and on the coasts of Ireland, except those to enemy action. At the Lizard on July 30th there were sixty-eight. On September 3rd, Medina Sidonia could still count forty-four. These had obeyed his orders and followed the course he set.

They all got home including all ten of the galleons of the Indian Guard, seven of the ten galleons of Portugal, eight of the Andalusians, seven of Oquendo's squadron, six of Recalde's. Only the Levanters were reduced to a skeleton, with just two out of ten great-ships.

It was a beaten, shattered fleet, but many more experienced admirals has brought back fewer ships against less formidable odds, these ships were saved by the leadership and will-power of their devoted commander. No one remembered this feat at the time, and few enough have ever remarked about it since.

The Duke did'nt seek any honour

When after Gravelines he had tasted the full bitterness of defeat, he had assumed that it was his duty to salvage whatever he could. The Duke managed to save, in ships and guns, nearly two thirds of his fighting strength. The Armada must have seemed to him like a national disaster, and he himself a disgrace.

He blamed himself for what had happened. But the English had better ships, and better guns, and better trained crews, and they enjoyed what proved to be a decisive-advantage of fighting close to their home base. The Armada had been sent, too weak and too scantily supplied, on an impossible mission.

Who actually led the broken fleet home on the last leg of its voyage, we shall never know. There were four pilots aboard the "San Martin", one of them an Englishman. Three died at sea. It must have been the fourth who brought the flagship to Santander. We do not know his name.

As for the Duke, on 3rd September, he took to his bunk and stayed there. For days he had been burning with fever. For the rest of the nightmare voyage he tumbled in and out of consciousness, only vaguely aware of the winds and the storms.

When he was lowered into the pilot boat at Santander he was too weak to sit upright, almost too weak to sign his name. Though he sent off to the King, to the Governor of the province and to the Archbishop of Santiago, a series of pleas for help.

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Help was dearly needed

On the "San Martin" alone, besides those killed in battle or died of their wounds, one-hundred and eighty were dead by 23rd September, the day she made port, of disease, hunger or thirst. More died daily in the "San Martin" and all of the other ships. Many ship's companies were in an even worse state than the flagship.

One ship ran aground in Laredo Harbour because there were not enough men left able to lower the sails and drop anchor. For weeks officers and men kept dying, while food and money were scraped together and emergency hospitals fitted out.

The ships were in almost as evil state as the men. One sank shortly after she cast her anchor. And some of the finest, were fit only to be broken up for the sake of their timber and their guns. As far as we can tell, almost half the surviving fleet turned out to be unfit for further service.

A ranking soldier, Captain Gaspar da Sousa, declared that no ship in the Armada had done better service or had been in the thick of the action, than the Duke of Medina Sidonia's flagship the "San Martin".

It can be argued that his decisions, including the decision to anchor at Calais and the choice of route home, were as sound as his personal conduct was courageous. Not that such judgement would have been much comfort to Medina Sidonia. For whatever he did, it was not enough.

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

Armada Going Home Armada Reason

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