Pre-Armada

The Spanish Preperations

This Naval History continues on from: "Francis Drake"

It was acknowledged that the King of Spain's intentions were war on England, but he was not quite ready to commit his fleet. Elizabeth kept Drake on a leash in Plymouth, and refused to sanction Hawkins' plan for a blockade of the Spanish coast.

English seamen and statesmen were aware of the risk, and greatly regretted the royal distraction, which left the country so exposed.

Elizabeth did hope for peace even so late as 1588, and a good many subjects shared her desire. This we can be sure of because the making of cloth in all parts of the realm was the greatest occupation and living in those Tudor days.

Normally wollens amounted to four firths of English exports and when exports deminished clothiers threw spinners and weavers out of work, and then the fleece from the squires flocks was scarcely worth selling. A bad wollen market pinched more purses than any other catastrophe.

Even she felt she could afford it Elizabeth would still have shunned war. She liked to boast that she had as much courage as her father. She had more. She took deliberate risks to her person and policies, which Henry VIII, would not have dared to do.

Some believed that Elizabeth was the Queen that liked wars; she was far from being like that. War was unpredictable, something she disliked. If she could retain peace she could again as she had always been, the mistress of her own and her country's fate.

Francis Drake

Preparing to reach an agreement

To gain extra time, the Spanish carried out negotiations with England about a peace pact between the two countries; out of this England were not the loser.

The Spanish armies peaked in September 1587, to over thirty-thousand, but by the spring of 1588, only seventeen-thousand remained, disease killed many, some deserted over lack of pay while others died of natural causes.

Nor did England drop its guard, a system of beacons had already been set up, all along the coasts, to warn when the Spanish fleet were in sight, town ditches were cleared and deepened. Englishmen who knew most, never believed that the fight would come on to the land.

English ships had the cannons on first

Henry VIII, in spending more money on ships of war than any other King in Europe, established Elizabeth I, with the most advanced and powerful navy Europe had ever seen.

The fighting ships were built for war not commerce, with a keel longer in proportion to their beam than was usual in the merchandise carrying merchant vessels. This type was the normal warship for Atlantic waters.

In John Hawkins the Queen was most fortunate, he had been in charge of ship-building and repairing her fleet. He wanted the galleons to carry more cannons and improved for sailing nearer the wind, and all because he believed in fighting at sea with big guns instead of boarding parties.

The Queen's new ships were built on sleek clean lines, and the older ships were rebuilt to match them. The result was a powerful fighting-fleet faster and more weatherly than any that had ever been seen on the ocean before.

At the same time the Spanish was working to arm their ships in a fashion as revolutionary as Hawkins design. The man-killing guns were reduced in number, and ship-killing guns were increased, iron gave way to brass for improved accuracy and longer range.

The Spanish guns were smaller

The Queen possessed a fleet capable of out-sailing and out-manoeuvring any enemy in any weather and at its chosen range, point blank, of out-gunning him decisively.

Drake and Hawkins (and many historians have since agreed) complained that Elizabeth did not fling her splendid fleet boldly at the Spanish coast, to cut off their trade and hold their King's warships helpless in port.

Instead she kept most of her ships at anchor with only skeleton crews and in a second rate of readiness; here officers were on half paid leave ready to be called upon to save money. Perhaps she should have listened to Drake and Hawkins, and perhaps her way was right?

With the winter setting in, sending sailing-ships into the Atlantic seems a great risk of loss of men through disease and other fatalities and good material. It is possible that Elizabeth counted all of these costs of the dangers as she husbanded her money.

As she arranged it her crews kept themselves fit and healthy on land with fresh food, a fair half of them on their own expense, thereby sparing the Queen's purse.

In the Spring tides the English fleet were careened on the foreshore, or in some cases on the banks of the Medway, scraping and tallowing one side by day and the other by night, so that no ship was out of the water more than twenty-four hours.

The English were proud of their ships

"The best ships in the world" more than one English captain claimed, and there was a singular opinion in their wishes that the Spanish were at sea and in sight so that they might try their conclusions. Whoever might have doubts of victory. They did not.

If they had been at sea all winter they might not have been equally as confident. That the fleet which finally met the Spaniards in the Channel was still at something like its top efficiency was due in a larger part than anyone has ever said; to, Queen Elizabeth I's prudence.

Philip knows the prophecy

The king wanted his Armada to sail for the "Cape of Margate" but his leaders were claiming not to be thoroughly prepared and that they feared leaving the Spanish coast unprotected. To the King, this was sad news.

Philip, was now in a state of terrible urgency, like a man for whom time is running out. He was walking forward on a path that he thought was ordained especially for him, as confidently as unansweringly, and as blindly as any Saint or World-conqueror in history. Was there a reason?

To those who had sufficiently studied history since the first year of Our Lord life was divided into a series of cycles, complicated permutations of multiples of ten and seven. Each cycle terminated by some gigantic catastrophe, with the whole series closing in 1588.

Translated it appears: A thousand years after the virgin birth and after five-hundred more allowed the world, the wonderful eighty-eight begins and brings with its woe enough. If this year, total catastrophe does not befall, if land and sea do not collapse in total ruin, yet the whole world suffer upheavals, empires will dwindle and from everywhere will be great lamentation.

Word of the prophecy spreads

With Philip's Armada expected in 1588, this old prophecy quickly spread across Europe, the prophecies were differently interpreted according to the country.

In Spain the King let it be known that he regarded all attempts to forecast the future as idleness and being unrespectful.

However some Spaniards found the verse disturbing. A ruinous confusion of land and sea is not the setting one would like to wish for an amphibios operation. And what could be more threatened than the world's greatest empire?

In February 1588, the King was becoming very eager and concerned to do something. He wrote letters stating: 'Success depends mostly on speed. Be quick!" He did not know the condition of his ships; because no one had told him. They dared not?

A legend had grown up that the Spaniards dispised artillery, they believed that cold steel was all that was needed to win fights at sea.

But no one who had commanded a fighting-ship at sea despised the heavy guns. Which the English had been using for nearly a century before the Spanish felt the need to do so.

Pope Sixtus V, wanted England defeated

No one in Europe took an accuter interest in the Enterprize of England than, His Holiness Pope Sixtus V. He had been urging it on Philip since the year of his papacy. He swore with a great oath, that on the day the first Spanish soldier set foot on English soil, he would not lend but give the King of Spain, a million golden ducats.

"And if you meet the English Armada in the Channel do you expect to win?" "Of course," replied a Spanish captain. "How can you be so sure?" "It's quite simple. If we come to close-quarters, Spanish valour and Spanish steel, and the masses of soldiers we shall have on board will make victory certain. We are sailing against England in the confident hope God will spare us a miracle," concluded the captain.

Early on 9th May ships of the Armada set to sea; later before mid-day down past Balem, they had to cast anchor and wait. All along the Atlantic coast it was a strange May, almost as violent as the astrolagers had promised. Hailstones ravaged fields and orchards, the rain turned roads into quagmires and brooks into impassable torrents.

In the three week interval Philip had time to send his Captain General, Further instructions and news. 'The English fleet was said to be very weak. Probably Drake would fortify himself in Plymouth and either refuse battle or sally out after the Armada had passed and take it in the rear. The Duke must be careful not to weaken his fleet too much before Drake is defeated.'

La Felicissima Armada

Philip liked to anticipate every eventuality, and give precise, specific instructions about dealing with each one, but he left out how to do it!

The fleet was called "La Felicissima Armada", "The most Fortunate Fleet", but popular opinion at once substituted "Invincible" in tribute to its awsome strength. Thanks to the Spanish taste, this Armada has been known as "La Invicible" ever since.

On 25th May his flagship the "San Martin" in the lead the Royal galleons of Portugal passed Castle St. Julian, and by 30th May the whole Armada was standing out to sea. The fleet would be south of cape Espichel before it had room for a new tack.

The fleet did keep together, but that meant, they were governed by the progress of the slowest vessel. A good many proved to be hulks, sluggish sailors. By 1st June after being at sea for fourty-eight hours, they had sailed fifteen nautical miles.

The weather was unhelpful, sometimes the wind changed direction more than four time in twenty-four hours, other times they were becalmed and the great fleet drifted idly, without steerage-way and sometimes there were sudden furious squalls. With such weather it took thirteen days to do more than one-hundred and sixty miles.

The good food was all but used up

The Captain General was now deeply concerned about provisions. Much had been used up in the long winter months with the freshest food and drink being used first. A rule was brought in that the oldest had to be consumed before the fresh rations were touched, but there is no proof that this was ever done.

Up to the last minute the Commander was appealing for further supplies, when he weighed anchor he left orders for more stores and equipment to be sent to him in victualling ships. They could meet him somewhere off Finisterre, so that the Armada could replenish at sea.

After searching for four days another alarming situation developed. Practically every squadron reported some of its ships short of water. Even though the water had been stowed for over a month, there should have been ample for another three months.

It was decided to put in to Corunna, to pick up provisions it could. That was twenty days after leaving Lisbon. Some fifty odd ships, great and small reached harbour before dark, the others turned away and stood out beyond the headlands.

Fair weather changed to a Tempest

Sometime after mid-night there came the worst tempest of that season. The ships at sea ran before the storm. There was nothing else they could do they scattered. The ships that had ridden out the storm were badly battered, many were leaking, with spars and masts carried away, anchors were lost and other damage was reported.

Four daye later the situation remained pretty grim, two galleasses and twenty-eight other major ships were still missing. Six-thousand soldiers and sailors were on them, out of about a total of twenty-two thousand. And of the remainder many were ill some seriously.

It was a month after the storm before the fleet was ready, but on the whole the delay seems to have been woth it. All necessary repairs had been completed, as many ships as possible had been careened, caulked and tallowed. Some aditional victuals had been found in ports close by.

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Almost back to effective strength

The threatened epidemic was checked, and the compliment of soldiers and mariners brought back up to strength. But best of all the last of the missing ships turned up.

Although the situation by the 21st July had been restored to something like that of two months ago, the Duke was still very concerned. Especially about the leaky casks, for they had been dishonestly made of green-wood.

Probably they could get no better than green pine staves for the barrells, at Cape St. Vincent the previous year Drake was well aware of what he was doing when he had all of the seasoned staves burnt to ashes. They should have guarded the Armada's food and drink.

With a brisk south wind filling its sails, the Armada finally steered for England, its Commander with a cautious mood of optimism.

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

Pre-Armada Armada Ahead

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