Chapter III

GEORGE CLIFFORD, EARL OF CUMBERLAND, THE
CHAMPION OF THE TILT-YARD

When a nobleman neglects his private duties to his home estates and spends his fortune in fitting out ships to seek gold and jewels, and to damage the trade of a country he hates, different estimates will be formed of the honesty and nobility of the motives by which he is prompted.

We shall see in the sketch of George Clifford's life how various motives, good and indifferent, urged him to play the sea-king.

He was born in his father's castle at Brougham, Westmorland, in August 1558, being fourteenth baron Clifford of Westmorland. His family history had been distinguished, for the Fair Rosamond of Henry II. was a Clifford, and in the wars of York and Lancaster the Cliffords took a prominent part on the Lancastrian side. When George was still a boy his father brought about his betrothment to the Lady Margaret Russell, daughter of the second Earl of Bedford. He was being educated at Battle Abbey when his father died, and later he went to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to complete his studies under Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who was then Master of Trinity. He also proceeded to Oxford for a time, as was not unusual in those days.

Before he was nineteen he was married to his betrothed in St. Mary Overy's Church, Southwark: the young lady was scarce seventeen years old. Clifford was a young man of expensive tastes. Amongst his other qualifications for Court life he excelled all the nobles of his time in tilting, and soon won the recognition of the Queen by his prowess in the Westminster tilt-yard. So he was made a Knight of the Garter, and in the twenty-eighth year of his age was appointed one of the forty Peers by whom Mary Queen of Scots was tried at Fotheringay Castle, in Nottinghamshire.

Was it policy, or love of adventure, or just desire for gain? The Earl soon began to form schemes for sending ships to plunder the Spaniards; he fitted out at his own cost the _Red Dragon_ of 260 tons, and the barque _Clifford_ of 130. Raleigh sent a pinnace to join them, and they sailed in 1586 under the command of Robert Withrington. They took a few merchantmen on their way to Sierra Leone; the principle on which they acted was a mixture of courtesy and bullying. Hakluyt says: "Our Admiral hailed their Admiral with courteous words, willing him to strike his sails and come aboard, but he refused; whereupon our Admiral lent him a piece of ordnance" (it sounds so kind and friendly) "which they repaid double, so that we grew to some little quarrel." The result was that the English boarded the hulks and helped themselves. For they found the hulks were laden in Lisbon with Spanish goods, and so thought them fair game. When they reached Guinea they went ashore, and in their search for water and wood came suddenly upon a town of negroes, who struck up the drum, raised a yell, and shot off arrows as thick as hail.

The English returned the fire, having about thirty calivers, and retired to their boats, "having reasonable store of fish"; "and amongst the rest we hauled up a great foul monster, whose head and back were so hard that no sword could enter it; but being thrust in under the belly in divers places, much wounded, he bent a sword in his mouth as a man would do a girdle of leather about his hand: he was in length about nine feet, and had nothing in his belly but a certain quantity of small stones." Later on they found another town of about two hundred houses and "walled about with mighty great trees and stakes, so thick that a rat could hardly get in or out." They got in, for the negroes had fled, and found the town finely and cleanly kept, "that it was an admiration to us all, for that neither in the houses nor streets was so much dust to be found as would fill an egg-shell." The English found little to take except some mats and earthen pots; was it for this that they, on their departure, set the town on fire? "It was burnt in a quarter of an hour, the houses being covered with reeds and straw."

Thence they sailed across to America, having no little trouble with a disease which they had caught ashore. They came to Buenos Ayres, where was great store of corn, cattle, and wine; but no gold or silver was to be had. Here they fell into some contention as to their further course, but as food was growing scarce they sailed northwards, till they came to Bahia, where they met a hot welcome of balls and bullets, but took some prizes. Then came a storm, and some of their prizes got loose and were lost. "Anon the people of the country came down amaine upon us and beset us round, and shot at us with their bows and arrows."

Of another fight which occurred shortly after, when the barque _Clifford_ was boarded by the enemy, the merchant Sarracoll says: "Giving a mighty shout they came all aboard together, crying, 'Entrad! Entrad!' but our men received them so hotly, with small shot and pikes, that they killed them like dogs. And thus they continued aboard almost a quarter of an hour, thinking to have devoured our men, pinnace and all ... but God, who is the giver of all victories, so blessed our small company that the enemy having received a mighty foil was glad to rid himself from their hands: whereas at their entrance we esteemed them to be no less than betwixt two and three hundred men in the galley, we could scarce perceive twenty men at their departure stand on their legs; but the greater part of them was slain, their oars broken and the galley hanging upon one side, as a sow that hath lost her left ear, with the number of dead and dying that lay one upon another." While this terrible havoc was a doing, others of the crew had gone ashore and fetched sixteen young bullocks, "which was to our great comforts and refreshing."

After committing what havoc they could along the coast, with little profit to themselves, the commander resolved to go home; which resolution was "taken heavily of all the company--for very grief to see my Lord's hopes thus deceived, and his great expenses cast away."

The Earl took part in the Armada fight on board the _Bonadventure_, and the Queen, to mark her approbation, gave him a commission to go the same year as General to the Court of Spain, lending him the _Golden Lion_; this ship he victualled and furnished at his own expense. After taking one merchant ship and weathering a storm, he was obliged to turn.

But the Queen was his good friend and lent him the _Victory_, and with three smaller ships and 400 men he sailed from Plymouth in 1589. We do not hear what his Countess thought of so much wandering into danger, but duty, or profit, called her lord to the high seas. He made a few prizes, French and German, for he was not too scrupulous about nationalities, and made for the Azores, where he cut out four ships. At Flores he manned his boats and obtained food and water from Don Antonio, a pretender to the throne of Portugal. As they were rowing back to their ship, "the boat was pursued two miles by a monstrous fish, whose fins many times appeared above water four or five yards asunder, and his jaws gaping a yard and a half wide, not without great danger of overturning the pinnace and devouring some of the company"; they rowed at last away from the monster. They were now joined by a ship of Raleigh's and two others.

Meanwhile the richly laden vessels of Spain were on their way home, with orders to rendezvous at St. Helena. Some of the Earl's cruisers sighted them, but did not dare attack the huge carracks, though Linschoten tells us--and he was aboard one of them--that if the English had attacked they must easily have been taken; for scurvy, caused by bad food, was making ravages on the crews. "Every day men who had been some days dead were discovered in the places whither they had crept that they might lie down and die in peace." But all the English cruisers did was to insult them with reproaches and annoy them with musketry, and such small cannon-shot as vessels of thirty tons could carry. As Admiral Colomb used to say, "A captain of a man-of-war in those days could carry a cannon-ball in his coat-tail pocket," so small and light were they.

When the Earl was told that the West Indian fleet had sailed past, he returned to Fayal and took possession of the town, consisting then of some five hundred well-built houses; the inhabitants had abandoned it at his approach. He set a guard to preserve the churches and monasteries and stayed there four days, till a ransom of 2000 ducats, mostly in church-plate, was brought to him, with sixty butts of wine.

While taking two Brazilian ships at St. Mary's laden with sugar, the bar detained his vessel in a position exposed to the enemy; eighty of his men were killed, the Earl was wounded slightly in the side; "his head also was broken with stones, so that the blood covered his face, and both his face and legs were burnt with fire-balls."

On their way home they fell in with a Portuguese ship laden with sugar, hides, and silver. Full of joy at their good speed they resolved upon going home. Captain Lister was sent in the prize to Portsmouth. He was wrecked at Helcliff, in Cornwall; all in her was lost, and only five lives saved. The Earl was delayed so long by bad weather that drink began to fail, and they had to collect what they could in sheets during a storm of rain. Many licked the moist boards and masts with their tongues, like dogs. In every corner of the ship were heard the lamentable cries of the sick and hurt, ten or twelve men died every night. Yet, we are told, the Earl ever encouraged his men by his presence of mind and his example; then they spoke a vessel which helped them with a little beer, and at last they put into Ventre-haven on the west coast of Ireland.

On arriving in London, as if the Earl had not suffered enough already, news was brought him that his eldest son was dead. But shortly after came another messenger announcing the birth of a daughter; this was the Lady Anne Clifford, who became, first, Countess of Dorset, and then of Pembroke. In this voyage thirteen prizes had been taken, and the profit doubled the outlay on his adventure in spite of the loss of his richest prize. It is difficult to realise the exceeding bitter feeling that existed between Spain and England at that time--a bitterness sharpened by religious differences, and kept in memory by private revenge.

For instance, Hakluyt tells us of a small English ship of about forty tons which was captured on the seas. Her crew were put by the Spaniards under hatches and coupled in bolts together; these men, after they had been prisoners three or four days, were murdered by a Spanish ensign-bearer, who had had a brother killed in the Armada fight, and who wished to revenge his death. This man took a poniard in his hand and went down under the hatches, where he found eight Englishmen sitting in chains, and with the same poniard he stabbed six of them to the heart; the remaining two clasped each other about the middle and threw themselves into the sea and there were drowned.

It is only fair to say that this act was much disliked by the other Spaniards, who carried the ensign-bearer a prisoner to Lisbon. The King of Spain willed he should be sent to England, that the Queen might treat him as she thought good; however, his friends interceded that he might be beheaded instead. On a Good Friday, as the Cardinal was going to Mass, captains and commanders stopped his Eminence and entreated for the man's pardon, and in the end they got his pardon, and his life was saved.

In 1592 the Earl of Cumberland hired the _Tiger_ of 600 tons, and with his own ship the _Samson_, the _Golden Noble_, and two small vessels, he set forth. Contrary winds kept him east of Plymouth so long that it became too late to intercept the outward-bound carracks, so the Earl transferred his command to Captain Norton and returned to London. After some hard fighting the ships returned with a richly laden carrack. The narrator of the voyage moralises upon the happy finding thus: "I cannot but enter into the acknowledgment of God's great favour towards our nation, who, by putting this purchase into our hands, hath manifestly discovered those secret trades and Indian riches which hitherto lay strangely hidden from us ... whereby it should seem that the will of God for our good is to have us communicate with them in those East Indian treasures, and by the erection of a lawful traffic to better our means to advance true religion and His holy service." The pious sailor then goes on to enumerate the goods that were stored in the holds of the Spanish carrack--from jewels and silks of China to spices and carpets of Turkey--in all estimated to be worth £150,000. This was of course to be divided amongst the adventurers.

But exaggerated expectations ended in general discontent, for the Queen had one small ship at the capture of the carrack, and because the Earl was not commanding in person his share was adjudged to depend on her Majesty's mercy and bounty. The royal lioness "dealt but indifferently with him." She took her share, and the other jackals helped themselves as largely as they dared; so that the Earl was fain to accept of £36,000 for him and his, as a pure gift. The carrack was unloaded at Dartmouth, and being so huge and unwieldy she was never removed from the river, "but there laid up her bones."

The spirit of adventure in the Earl was not quenched by this disappointment, for in the latter end of 1593 he got ready two ships royal and seven others, which set sail next spring. Off the isle of Flores he met the Portuguese fleet and had to stand off to avoid them, as they were too numerous to attack. He was taken ill and would have died, had not Monson gone ashore on Corvo and stolen a milch cow, which they brought aboard. Twelve hulks yielded him some treasure, and he left for home after a gainful voyage.

Three of his ships he had sent to the West Indies, and they made for the pearl fisheries at Margarita. A Spaniard treacherously showed them where the pearls were stored in a ranckeria; they surprised it by night with twenty-eight men and carried off £2000 worth of pearls. Coasting along, two of them fell in with seven ships, moored alongside head and stern, and fought all day, hammer-and-tongs. The Spaniards got into their boats next day and made for the land, carrying the rudders with them; the English helped themselves and fired the ships. They then brought the chief ship of 250 tons safely to Plymouth.

Next year the Earl set forth on his eighth voyage, and in June came in sight of a big Indian ship whose name was _Las Cinque Llagas_ ("the Five Wounds"), and she carried 1400 persons, of whom 270 were slaves.

The Earl's _Mayflower_ was the first to get up to her, and was hotly fired into; for the Portuguese had sworn to defend their ship to the last, and fought with desperation. Don Rodrigo de Cordoba, having both his legs shattered, cried out, "Sirs, I have got this in the discharge of my duty. Be of good heart. Let no one forsake his post; let us perish rather than be taken."

Twice did the English board, and twice were they driven out with great loss. Downton the rear-admiral was crippled for life, and Cave, who commanded the Earl's ship, was mortally wounded by a shot through both legs. To make the hideous scene worse, fire was thrown about and the _Cinque Llagas_ caught and began to burn.

A Franciscan friar, Antonio, was seen standing with a crucifix in his hand, encouraging the crew to commit themselves to the waves and God's mercy, rather than die in the flames, and a vast number plunged into the sea. It is said that the English boats made no attempt to save these unfortunates, but the English themselves were on fire and were probably busy putting their own ships in order. But the rear-admiral's boat picked up Nuno Velho and some others; Nuno had been Governor of Mozambique and had been only recently shipwrecked and rescued by the _Cinque Llagas_. There were also on board two Portuguese ladies of high birth, Doña Isabel Pereira and her beautiful daughter, Doña Luiza de Mello. They had been wrecked in the _Santo Alberto_, and had since travelled through Kaffraria on foot nearly a thousand miles. The young lady was travelling home to take possession of her entailed property at Evora. In the confusion and panic they could get no attention, and fear of something worse than death urged them to fasten themselves together with a Franciscan cord and leap into the sea. Their bodies, so bound together, were at length cast up on the shore of the island of Fayal.

Nuno Velho and Braz Correa, captain of the _Nazareth_, were taken as prisoners to England, where the Earl treated them hospitably for a whole year. It was perhaps not wholly from kindly and unselfish motives, for in the end Nuno Velho paid three thousand cruzados for the ransom of both.

As for the _Cinque Llagas_, she burned all day and all night, but "the next morning her powder, being sixty barrels, blew her abroad, so that most of the ship did swim in parts above the water."

Towards the end of June they fell in with another great ship, which they at first took for _S. Philip_, the admiral of Spain, and were mighty cautious how they approached her guns. But seeing she was a carrack they bestowed on her some shot and summoned her to yield, unless she would undergo the same fate as the _Five Wounds_. But the Portuguese captain was a brave man and replied: "I acknowledge Don Philip, King of Spain, not the Queen of England. If the Earl of Cumberland has been at the burning of the _Cinque Llagas_, so have I, D. Luis Continho, been at the defeat and capture of Sir Richard Grenville in the _Revenge_. Do what you dare, Earl, for your Queen, and I, Luis, will do what I can for my King. My ship is homeward bound from India, laden with riches, and with many jewels on board. Come and take her if ye can."

The fight was renewed, but the English, having already many officers killed and wounded, and by reason of the "murmuring of some disordered and cowardly companions," sailed away for England, having done much harm to the enemy and little good to themselves.

So the Earl returned to England, and at once set about building a ship big enough to lie alongside any of the Spanish vessels; she was 900 tons, the largest ship ever yet built by a British subject. The Queen was so pleased by the Earl's spirit that she, at the launching of the big ship, gave it the name of the _Scourge of Malice_.

Her first voyage in 1595 was not a success, for as they reached Plymouth a command was received from her Majesty that the Earl should return. So he sent Captain Langton on, who took three Dutch ships that were carrying ammunition and provisions for the King of Spain, and returned to England.

The ninth expedition in 1596, led by the Earl in his new ship, with the _Dreadnought_ of the Royal Navy, was also a failure; for a violent storm split the Earl's mainmast and he had to return home.

In 1597 the Earl obtained letters-patent authorising him to levy sea and land forces, and he began to prepare the largest expedition which had ever been undertaken by a private individual without royal help; it consisted of eighteen sail, and the Earl took the command in person.

His design was, first, to impoverish the King of Spain; secondly, to catch the outward-bound fleet as it sailed from the Tagus. If this failed, then thirdly, to seize some town or island that would yield him riches.

They set out on the 6th of March, but in a few hours the masts of the _Scourge of Malice_ began to show weakness, and she had to put in near Lisbon and be repaired. They worked night and day, fearing to be discovered, while the other vessels kept out at sea. On rejoining his fleet he heard that a ship from England with Spaniards on board had sailed into the Tagus and warned the Indian fleet. The carracks remained therefore under cover of the fort's guns, and the Earl sailed for the Canaries, where he landed on Lancerota, "borrowed some necessaries," as the looting was described, and found his men had got drunk and were mutinous. So the Earl preached them a sermon and threatened to hang the sinners on the next offence. Hence they sailed across the Atlantic to Dominica, where the inhabitants welcomed them, as they too hated the Spaniards; here they found a hot spring at the north-west end of the island. "The bath is as hot as the King's bath in the city of Bath." Here their sick men disported themselves and found "good refreshing." They were enchanted with the beauty of the valleys and trees and rivers and gathered new strength. Then they went on to Puerto Rico, the key of all the Indies, and the Earl assured his men that the island was rich, and they must take the town. "The Indian soldiers," he said, "live too pleasantly to venture their lives. They will make a great show, and perhaps endure one brunt, but if they do any more, tear me to pieces!"

So they landed on a beach four leagues from the town and marched on the hot sand, now and again paddling in the cool waves like merry children. A negro was compelled to lead them, and they had to clamber over rough rocks till they came to an entrance of an arm of the sea and saw that the town was set upon a little island. Then were they at their wits' ends how to cross over, but as they had seen some horsemen, the Earl thought there must be a passage. By dint of bullying the negro they made him show a path "through the most wickedest wood that ever I was in in all my life." By sunset they came to a long and narrow causeway leading to a drawbridge which linked the little island with the greater one. But the bridge was up, and they asked the negro if it were possible to ford the passage: "Yes, at ebb-tide, massa," he replied. So they lay down and slept, being very tired. Two hours before day the alarm was quietly given, "for we needed not but to shake our ears." As they advanced along the rugged causeway the Earl's shield-bearer stumbled and fell against his master, knocking him into the sea, where, being by reason of his heavy armour unable to rise, he was in great danger of drowning. He swallowed so much salt-water that he was extremely sick, and had to lie down whilst the assault was going on. But the Spaniards resisted stoutly, the tide too came up, and the English had to retire with a loss of fifty men.

A second attempt with a vessel was more successful and the Spaniards were driven from their fort. When the Earl's men entered the town they found only women and old men. The men had retired to another fort and refused to yield; so two batteries were brought up and "began to speak very loud."

During the siege the Earl had to punish a good soldier of his "for over-violent spoiling a gentlewoman of her jewels." The man was hanged in the market-place in the presence of many Spaniards. A sailor too, who had defaced a church, was condemned to die. Twice he was taken to the gallows, and twice he was removed in obedience to the clamours for his pardon. In a few days the Spaniards demanded a parley and surrendered, carrying their arms.

But the climate of the island began to tell on the health of the English. Books had their glued backs melted by the heat, candied fruits lost their crust, and English comfits grew liquid. In July more than 200 died, and twice as many were sick of a flux and hot ague, with the limbs cold and weak. So the Earl made haste to store the hides, ginger, and sugar, also the town's guns and ammunition. He put on board, too, specimens of the sensitive plant, of which the chaplain said: "It hath a property confounding my understanding, for if you lay a finger upon the leaves of it, the leaves will contract and wither and disdainfully withdraw themselves, as if they would slip themselves rather than be touched."

The Earl soon sailed for the Azores, hoping to catch the Mexican fleet; but he found that the homeward-bound carracks had already passed and the Mexican fleet was not expected, so in disappointment they sailed home. Seven hundred out of the thousand men who had landed at Puerto Rico had died, and the Spaniards had, knowing this, refused to ransom the city. So this grand expedition became a very serious loss to the Earl, but it was the cause of a greater loss to Spain, by preventing the carracks from going to or returning from the Indies. This was the Earl of Cumberland's last venture. Fuller eulogises him as "a person wholly composed of true honour and valour." But when we reflect that prodigal expenditure at Court, display at the tilting-field, and losses in horse-racing were amongst the incentives to these rash exploits, we must place him a little lower than old Fuller does. However, the Earl compares to advantage with our modern spendthrifts, most of whom will make no effort to retrieve their ruined fortunes, and expect their kind relations to support them in idleness. The Earl of Cumberland played a man's part, and was not above serving his country as well as his personal interests. There was something heroic about him even in his actions at Court.

For they say that on one of these occasions the Queen dropped her glove, either by accident, or from some coquettish fancy natural to her. The Earl picked it up, and on his knee presented the glove to her. "My Lord, an it please thee, keep it in my memory," she murmured. The courtier put the glove into his bosom and bowed low. Another would have hidden it in a cabinet, labelled and dated, but the Earl sent the glove to his jeweller, and had it emblazoned with diamonds. It was then set in front of his hat and worn at all public assemblies when he was likely to appear before the Queen.

In his youth the Earl had fallen in love with the daughter of Sir William Hollis, a lovely and beautiful girl. But her father rejected the proposal of the Earl, much to his discontent--"My daughter shall marry a good gentleman with whom I can enjoy society and friendship, and I will not have a son-in-law before whom I must stand cap in hand." He next paid his addresses to Lady Margaret Russell, daughter of Francis, Earl of Bedford, and was accepted. She bore him two sons, both of whom died in infancy, and a daughter, to whom he left £15,000--a young lady who inherited the common sense of her mother and the high spirit of both parents.

This charming girl, Lady Anne, married first Sackville, Earl of Dorset, and afterwards Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. She seems to have been one of the last in England to support the old baronial dignity of feudal times. She had the honour of erecting a monument to the poet Spenser, founded two hospitals, and repaired or built seven churches and six castles--no bad record for one lady of noble blood.

It is said that one of her friends advised her to be more sparing in building churches and castles now the Lord Protector Cromwell was in power; for he might take it in hand to demolish them.

"Let him destroy them if he will," she replied proudly; "he shall surely find, as often as he does so, I will rebuild them while he leaves me a shilling in my pocket."