Chapter II: “born to Serve and Save His Country.”

Queen Elizabeth has been magniloquently designated the RESTORER OF ENGLAND’S NAVAL POWER and SOVEREIGN OF THE NORTHERN SEAS. Under her sovereignty Lord Charles Howard wielded supreme authority worthily and well, on behalf of his country, during that naval demonstration, which may be regarded as the most important, in its design and results, of any that the world has known. Lord Charles was High Admiral of England during the period of the inception, the proud departure, the baleful course, and the doleful return to Spain, of the “most happy and invincible Armada,” or rather--what was left of it.

Charles Howard, elder son of the Earl of Effingham, was born in the year 1536, in the reign of Henry VIII. Charles served under his father, who was Lord Admiral to Mary, in several expeditions. He did duty as an envoy to Charles IX. of France on his accession. He served as a general of horse in the army headed by Warwick, against the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, and, as a courtier, he rendered various other services, not calling for particular notice. In 1572 he succeeded his father, and in 1573 was made a Knight of the Garter. On the death of the Earl of Lincoln, in 1585, the queen appointed Lord Charles, High Admiral. This appointment gave great satisfaction to all ranks, and was especially gratifying to seamen,--with whom Lord Charles was highly popular.

Philip of Spain employed all the art he was possessed of to obtain ascendency over Elizabeth, as he had done over her infatuated sister Mary, and--irrespective of law, if any existed to the contrary--was more than willing to marry his “deceased wife’s sister,” but Elizabeth would neither marry, nor take orders from him, which exasperated Philip greatly. His religious fanaticism and the influence of the Jesuits made him determined to punish the queen and ruin her country. With this amiable intention the great Armada was prepared. It consisted of 130 ships, of an aggregate of about 60,000 tons. It was armed with 2630 pieces of cannon, and carried 30,000 men, including 124 volunteers,--the flower of the Spanish nobility and gentry,--and 180 monks. Twelve of the greatest ships were named after the twelve apostles.

The English fleet was put under the command of Lord Howard, with Sir Francis Drake for his vice-admiral, and Sir John Hawkins for his rear-admiral. Lord Henry Seymour, with Count Nassau, cruised on the coast of Flanders, to watch the movements of the Duke of Parma, who purposed, it was believed, to form a junction with the Spanish Armada, or to aid it, by making a separate descent upon England.

The threatened invasion stirred the kingdom to the highest pitch of patriotic fervour. The city of London advanced large sums of money for the national service. Requisitioned to provide 15 ships and 5000 men, the city fathers promptly provided 30 ships and 10,000 men.

The Armada encountered a violent storm, at almost the commencement of the voyage northwards, and had to put back. The rumour was current in England that the great expedition was hopelessly shattered. Lord Howard consequently received, through Walsingham, Secretary of State, instructions to send four of his largest ships into port. The admiral doubted the safety of this course, and willingly engaged to keep the ships out, at his own charge. He bore away towards Spain, and soon obtained such intelligence, as confirmed him in the opinion he had formed, and fully justified the course he had adopted.

On the 19th July, Fleming, a Scottish pirate, who plied his vocation in the Channel and the approaches thereto, sailed into Plymouth in hot haste, with the intelligence that the Armada was at hand. This pirate did, for once at least in his life, an honest and incalculably important day’s work. An ancient historian estimates it so highly as to say that “this man was, in reality, the cause of the absolute ruin of the Spaniards; for the preservation of the English was undoubtedly owing to his providential discovery of the enemy.” At the request of Lord Admiral Howard, the queen afterwards granted a pardon to Fleming for his past offences, and awarded him a pension for the timely service he had rendered to the nation.

“And then,” says Dr. Collier, “was played on the Hoe at Plymouth that game of bowls, which fixes itself like a picture on the memory,--the faint, hazy blue of the July sky, arching over sun-baked land and glittering sea; the group of captains on the grass, peak-bearded and befrilled, in the fashion of Elizabeth’s day; the gleaming wings of Fleming’s little bark skimming the green waters like a seagull, on her way to Plymouth harbour with the weightiest news. She touches the rude pier; the skipper makes hastily for the Hoe, and tells how that morning he saw the giant hulls off the Cornish coast, and how he has with difficulty escaped by the fleetness of his ship. The breathless silence changes to a storm of tongues; but the resolute man who loaded the _Golden Hind_ with Spanish pesos, and ploughed the waves of every ocean round the globe, calls on his comrades to ‘play out the match, for there is plenty of time to do so, and to beat the Spaniards too.’ It is Drake who speaks. The game is resumed, and played to the last shot. Then begin preparations for a mightier game. The nation’s life is at stake. Out of Plymouth, along every road, men spur as for life, and every headland and mountain peak shoots up its red tongue of warning flame.”

The sorrows and sufferings of the crowd of Spaniards noble and ignoble, of the nine score holy fathers, and the two thousand galley slaves, who left the Tagus in glee and grandeur, in the “happy Armada,” with a great design,--but really to serve no higher purpose, as things turned out, than to provide, in their doomed persons, a series of banquets for the carnivorous fishes in British waters,--need not be dwelt upon here, being referred to elsewhere.

As commander-in-chief, it was universally felt and admitted that Lord Charles Howard acquitted himself with sound judgment, consummate skill, and unfaltering courage. The queen acknowledged his merits, the indebtedness of the nation to the lord high admiral, and her sense of his magnanimity and prudence, in the most expressive terms. In 1596 he was advanced to the title and dignity of Earl of Nottingham, his patent of nobility containing the declaration, “that by the victory obtained anno 1588, he did secure the kingdom of England from the invasion of Spain, and other impending dangers; and did also, in conjunction with our dear cousin, Robert, Earl of Essex, seize by force the Isle and the strongly fortified castle of Cadiz, in the farthest part of Spain; and did likewise rout and entirely defeat another fleet of the King of Spain, prepared in that port against this kingdom.” On entering the House of Peers, the Earl of Nottingham was received with extraordinary expressions and demonstrations of honourable regard.

In 1599, circumstances of delicacy and difficulty again called for the services of the Earl of Nottingham. Spain meditated another invasion. The Earl of Essex in Ireland had entangled affairs, had left his post there, and had rebelliously fortified himself in his house in London. The Earl of Nottingham succeeded in bringing the contumacious earl to a state of quietude, if not of reason, and had the encomium pronounced upon him by the queen, that he seemed to have been born “to serve and to save his country.” He was invested with the unusual and almost unlimited authority of Lord Lieutenant General of all England; he was also appointed one of the commissioners for executing the office of Earl-Marshal. On her death-bed the queen made known to the earl her desire as to the succession,--an unequivocal proof of her regard and confidence,--the disclosure having been entreated in vain by her most favoured ministers.

The accession of James did not impede the fortunes of the Earl of Nottingham; he was appointed Lord High Steward, to assist at the coronation; and afterwards commissioned to the most brilliant embassy--to the court of Philip III. of Spain--that the country had ever sent forth. During his stay at the Spanish court, the dignified splendour that characterised the Embassy commanded the admiration and respect of the court and people; and at his departure, Philip made him presents of the estimated value of about £20,000,--thereby exciting the jealousy and displeasure of the far from magnanimous James I. Popularity and influence, enjoyed or exercised independently of himself, were distasteful and offensive to his ungenerous nature. James frequently reminded his nobles at court “that they were there, as little vessels sailing round the master ship; whereas they were in the country so many great ships each riding majestically on its own stream.”

The earl had his enemies, but he regained the confidence of the king, and in 1613 assisted at the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with Frederick, the Elector Palatine. His last naval service was to command the squadron that escorted the princess to Flushing. The infirmities of age having disqualified him for discharging the onerous duties of the office, he resigned his post of lord high admiral, after a lengthened term of honourable and effective service. The distinguished career of this eminent public man came to a calm and honourable close on the nth December 1624--the earl having reached the advanced age of eighty-eight years.

SIR MARTIN FROBISHER,

NAVIGATOR, DISCOVERER, AND COMBATANT.