Chapter IX (2)

In the meanwhile the arsenals and harbours of Philip’s realms were ringing with preparations for the great enterprise. The peace conference so much desired by Elizabeth might meet in Flanders and talk, but no pause was made in the feverish activity in the Spanish preliminaries for war. Old Santa Cruz had waited patiently after the King’s gentle rebuff to him in 1583,[276] until the circumstances detailed in the foregoing pages had rendered war with England inevitable early in 1586, when he wrote to the King from Lisbon a letter full of fiery zeal, recalling his former offer to conquer England when his victorious fleet was ready, and deploring the shame that had fallen upon Spain since by reason of the continued insults and injuries inflicted upon it by the heretics, much to the material gain and moral prestige of the Queen of England. They had, he said, plundered a million and a half of ducats in the last five months, and had defied the King of Spain successfully at all points. Everything was now propitious, urged the admiral, for dealing a final blow at these daring heretics, and he prayed the King to arise in his wrath and smite his enemy before the occasion passed. “I am not moved to this,” he proudly added, “by a desire for fresh battles or the ambition for new victories, but by no other motive than the service of God and your Majesty.”

This time the hero’s appeal found the King ready, for all his peaceful diplomacy had failed to bring England to his side; and Santa Cruz was requested to submit to the King a plan for carrying out the enterprise he proposed. It took Santa Cruz two months, as he says, to draw up from his papers and the experience of forty years at sea a complete scheme for the irresistible descent upon England; and the estimate with which he furnished Philip stands to-day, after three centuries and a quarter, an unexampled monument of foresight, skill, and boldness. Nothing was forgotten in this prodigious estimate: naval and military requisites, arms, stores, clothing and material, down to the minutest detail, are set forth, with estimates of price and with surprising clearness; the salaries to be paid to men of every rank are given; the weight and bulk of every article, the best place where it may be obtained, the rations to be provided, and the discipline to be observed on land and sea, are all written in due order, and to such a lover of formal papers as Philip the estimate of Santa Cruz must have been a pure delight from the bureaucratic point of view.

Not so, however, with regard to the concentrated magnitude of the demands, greater than had ever been made for such an enterprise before. Santa Cruz wanted for the invasion of England 150 great ships, 40 store hulks, 320 small craft of 50 to 80 tons burden, 40 galleys and 6 galleasses, or 556 sail in all, besides 40 skiffs and 200 landing rafts. There were needed 30,000 sailors and nearly 64,000 soldiers, with 1,600 cavalry horses, all to be shipped from Spain, and this enormous multitude was to be provisioned beforehand for eight months with food and water. Deducting the ordinary cost of armaments in Spain, the extra estimated expense to be incurred by the enterprise was placed by Santa Cruz at 3,800,000 ducats.[277] The sum in money was much greater than Philip had ever had to provide in Spain for any one enterprise before, and it took him aback now. The Pope, it is true, had promised a million ducats, but not a soldo would he pay beforehand, and the Italian States might be coerced into contributing; but the bulk of this vast sum in ready money had to be wrung somehow out of already exhausted Castile, and, anxious as Philip was to make assurance doubly sure, he knew that this was impossible; so Santa Cruz’s estimates had to be modified.

The opportunity for the invasion, nevertheless, was one that could hardly be expected to recur. The cup of Elizabeth’s provocations was full to the brim, and her anxiety to open peace negotiations proved her own apprehensions. France, for almost the first time, was paralysed and could not interfere. Leicester’s ineptitude in Holland had even turned the feeling of the Dutch against their protectors, whilst many of the English troops and their leaders, such as Roland York, Sir W. Stanley, and Colonel Semple had deserted to the Spanish side and had delivered to Parma the fortresses occupied by them. The Turk, moreover, was for the time harmless, and Don Antonio was already a discredited and waning force. So, although Philip did not approve of Santa Cruz’s plan that the whole army should be embarked in Spain, he gave orders that the arsenals and dockyards should work night and day, and through Spain and Portugal, Sicily, Naples, and Lombardy there rang the echoes of warlike preparations such as they had never known before; whilst the recluse of the Escorial, shutting himself away from all other tasks, took counsel how he might effect his purpose with the means at his disposal.

It is not to be supposed that the French and Scottish faction would sit tamely by and see without an effort the whole enterprise of England fall into the hands of Spain. The conversion of James Stuart was still a fervent hope with many who dreaded to see a Spanish king supreme in Britain; and the English Jesuit faction had to fight hard against the Welsh, Scottish, French, and many English Catholics at home and abroad. James Stuart himself and the Scottish Catholic nobles were fully alive to the danger that threatened. The Scottish nobles, with the secret connivance of James, made a bold attempt to associate themselves with Philip’s invasion, and to bring Guise again into the combination. Huntly, Morton, Claude Hamilton, Crawford, and Montrose, in the summer of 1586, sent one Robert Bruce with three blank signed papers to the Duke of Guise in Paris, where the letters over the signatures were written at Guise’s dictation and addressed to Philip,[278] begging him to listen to the verbal proposals of their envoy, Bruce. Guise and Beton introduced Bruce to Mendoza, and the gist of the proposals was that Philip should send to the Scottish Catholics 150,000 crowns to raise and arm soldiers, whom they would maintain for a year, and they also asked that a foreign force of 6,000 men should be sent to Scotland to secure the triumph of the Catholics, in consideration of which they promised to place at his disposal one or more ports in the south of Scotland to serve as a shelter and a base of operations against England. Mendoza understood, as indeed did all experienced fighting-men, the immense importance of the latter suggestion; for Santa Cruz from the first had insisted upon the need of seizing harbours in the Channel in case of contrary weather; and Bruce was sped on his way to see Philip with all the support that the ambassador could give him.

But Philip had had enough of Guisan meddling, and he had no intention of allowing the supreme effort he was making to be used for the benefit of any one but himself, and least of all for that of shuffling James Stuart. As usual, he did not say no plainly, for he had no wish to alienate the Scottish Catholics, or to arouse suspicions of his motives anywhere. So, gently suggesting doubts and difficulties, he referred the question to Mendoza and Parma for report, sending Bruce back to Paris with “fair words” and a letter to Guise “praising the zeal which moves you to strive so sincerely for the promotion of our holy Catholic faith.” Mendoza was directed to keep the Scots in hand, to suggest that they should ask the Pope for the money they needed, and to flatter Guise as much as he thought necessary; all of which meant that Philip would not bind himself to Scot or Frenchman in the execution of his project, though, if on their own account and at their own risk they cared to divert his enemy, he had, of course, no objection to their doing so. But the offer of one or two safe ports in Scotland near the English border was one not lightly to be refused—its acceptance, indeed, might have changed the whole course of history—and Mendoza, an experienced soldier, wrote in October, 1586, to Parma strongly urging that the offer of the Scottish Catholics should be sympathetically entertained, in order that a diversion might thus be effected in the North simultaneously with the Spanish invasion of the South of England; though here commended that full inquiries should be first made to ascertain to what extent Huntly and his friends could carry out their pledges.

Parma, however, was almost as cautious as his uncle. He was, in fact, resentful that Philip was keeping him in the dark as to his ultimate plans, and was determined not to move a step in any direction beyond his written orders until he knew what the King was really aiming at; whether to frighten Elizabeth into peace, which Parma more than suspected, or to crush her finally by war. So to Mendoza’s almost vehement advocacy of the Scottish diversion Parma replied coolly, saying that the proposal would fail unless it formed part of the combined plan and was executed in co-operation simultaneously with the invasion. Mendoza grew more and more in love with Bruce’s proposal, which would, he said, give harbours of refuge for the Spaniards in the North Sea and divide the Queen of England’s forces; and here began the first whispers of Parma’s half-hearted loyalty,[279] which amongst the vanquished officers of the Armada afterwards swelled into a tempest of indignant recrimination.

Mendoza’s inquiries of Bruce had satisfied all his doubts, and to Philip he wrote beseechingly on the 24th December, 1586, in favour of the scheme. Some of the passages in his extremely able letter,[280] read by the knowledge of the subsequent disaster of the Armada, sound almost prophetic. “It is of advantage to the English,” he wrote, “that they should be attacked by a force which needs great sea fleets for its transport and maintenance, both on account of the immense sums of money which must be spent upon such an expedition, and the vast quantities of material and the length of time necessary for preparation, as well as the many opportunities which occur during this delay for impeding the progress of such armaments. Such expeditions, moreover, are liable to much greater disasters than land armies, for in most cases the mere death of the leader suffices to frustrate them ... and in the event of the loss of a great fleet the owner is deprived at one blow of forces, ships, and guns—things difficult to replace readily.” It is clear now, with our later knowledge, that the old warrior-diplomatist—the last of the disciples of Alba, as he calls himself—was right in his appreciations, and that Philip made a fatal mistake in not following the advice of such men, instead of indulging in his fatal itch for retaining in his own hands all executive monopoly and all ultimate profit in his plans.

But the advances of Huntly were not entirely rejected, for not only Mendoza, but Parma too, as time went on, saw their importance, and although the idea of invading England over the Scottish border was again vetoed, Bruce was sent back to Scotland after many months of impatient waiting in France and Flanders, carrying with him ten thousand crowns to freight ships in Scotland ostensibly for Dantzig, but really for Flanders, to embark there an auxiliary force to aid the Scottish Catholics in their intended rising.[281] Bruce went on his way late in the summer of 1586, with his doublet padded with gold, but when he arrived in Scotland the whole scheme was embroiled and frustrated with the usual ineptitude. It was too late in the season for the ships to be obtained. James Stuart was also consulted by the Scottish lords as to his joining the Spanish attack upon England to avenge his mother, with the result that was to be expected. Bruce and his companion, Foster, turned traitors when the plan was seen to be impracticable, and once more, and for the last time, Philip settled down to the inevitability of conquering England by himself alone, and for himself alone.

It was more important now than ever it had been that he should succeed in doing it, for Henry III. of France was without a son, and was in bad health. If Henry of Navarre, a Huguenot, became King, and France ceased to be a Catholic country and in alliance with Protestant England, the Catholic domination of Europe would be at an end, and the sun of Spain must sink rapidly. The conquest of England, indeed, must be effected, and the country made Catholic before Henry III. died, or all, it seemed, would be lost; and Philip, after thirty years of paltering, was now in a desperate hurry. There was still another reason why Philip’s zeal for the conquest of England should be further inflamed at this time. Mary Stuart was condemned to death, and in the bitterness of her heart she wrote the beautiful letter[282] to Mendoza (23rd November, 1586), in which she entrusted to Philip alone the task of avenging her and the cause for which she died, of providing for her servants, and, above all, of inheriting her rights to the succession of the Crown of England, which bequest she afterwards confirmed by a formal will. There was no longer any legal bar between Philip and the sovereignty, and no further fear of a doubtfully Catholic successor being adopted by Mary after her accession. With the fall of the head of the Queen of Scots the spirits of the English Jesuit party rose, for they knew now that James and his countrymen would not be allowed to lord over Englishmen if once Philip held the country in his grasp.

The subtle web of intrigue that had been spun for so many years past, the threads of which we have to some small extent endeavoured to unravel, had so far been favourable to Philip. He had patiently suffered numberless indignities and injuries at the hands of Elizabeth and her people; he had seen England and his own Dutch provinces drift ever further away from him; but he had never ceased to plot patiently in order to dispose affairs aptly for his vengeance when the propitious hour should strike. The Guises had been alternately flattered and frowned at, until their great ambitions in France seemed to hang upon Philip’s will, and they dared not stir without his countenance. Henry III. had been by the same means rendered equally powerless to help England or to hinder Spain. The Scottish Catholics had been subsidised and cajoled, as had James Stuart himself, into a benevolent neutrality towards Philip with blended hopes and fears of the English succession. Mary Stuart had been so handled as to lead her to make Philip by will the heir to the English Crown; and gradually all the strings which were intended to pull down the edifice of the Reformation were gathered into the hands of the gouty old monastic monarch in his granite cloister-palace on the bleak Castilian sierra. Each interest, as we have seen, had been silently and separately dealt with, and tricked into the position that best suited Philip’s ends; for he would take no risks that he could avoid, and aspired to imitate natural forces in the slow, insensible accumulation of power, which at the supreme moment might be launched by the master with irresistible effect.

When, at length, the stealthy plotting had reached fruition, and Elizabeth saw herself isolated, with Henry III. and James VI. paralysed; when the Pope and the Cardinals understood that the Church and its cherished hoards were to be instruments of Spanish political ends; when the Guises found that they and their kin were to be excluded from all share in the great prize of England; and even the English Catholics of the more patriotic and moderate sort awoke to the knowledge that their religion and their scorn of the Scots were being used to forward a conspiracy against the independence of their country; then each separate interest struggled as best it might to free itself from the toils in which the diplomacy of Philip had involved it. Allen, with his seminary, and the English Jesuits under Parsons, had gone over to the Spanish side bag and baggage, but the English Carthusians and seculars under Dr. Owen Lewis, and the large Scottish Catholic element in Rome under the Bishop of Dunblane, aided the Guisan Cardinals in combating the idea of a purely Spanish domination of England, and the contest went on bitterly and without cessation, especially after the death of Mary Stuart had made the fears more imminent.

Before that had happened, Philip had instructed Olivares to sound the Pope cautiously, and, if possible, to obtain a brief from him, declaring Philip entitled to the throne of England after the Queen of Scots, “as I cannot make war upon England for the purpose merely of placing upon the throne a young heretic like the King of Scots.” The Pope’s fears were to be lulled by the declaration that Philip had no intention of annexing England to the Crown of Spain, but of passing the sovereignty to some suitable Catholic candidate, perhaps to his daughter, the Infanta Isabel. Olivares, Allen, and Parsons knew at this time (January, 1587) that the Vatican was uneasy about the whole business, and they prayed the King to say nothing about his own claim openly until the Armada had been successful. But when, a month or two later, the news of Mary’s death came, Philip was obliged to some extent to show his hand to the Pope, and the brief was ordered to be secretly asked for as a measure of precaution. Above all, Philip urged, not a word must be said about his claims to Guise or the Frenchmen.

Unfortunately, much had already been said about them, even by Mendoza; and Guise and Catharine de Medici, and James of Scotland himself, were all trying their utmost to prove how very Catholic the latter was, and what an excellent King of England he would make. Philip ordered that his claims upon England were only to be broached with the utmost caution to the English Catholics. In May, 1587, the King wrote to Mendoza: “You must only speak of my rights to well-disposed native Englishmen in order that they may be informed of the truth, and convey it to others of their nationality, that it may thus spread and gain ground amongst them. But do not mention the matter to Frenchmen and others, who will only take it up for the purpose of frustrating it.”[283] To add to his authority in the matter, Philip urged successfully that Allen should be made a Cardinal, and he was well primed by instructions from Spain how to push the succession question with the Pope. Religion, of course, was to be the pretext. The King of Scots was a heretic, and unfit to succeed. For the good of the Church a Catholic of unquestionable orthodoxy should be chosen, and he must be powerful enough to keep England in the straight path. All this, of course, could only tend to the conclusion that Philip or his daughter alone would serve; and very gradually and cautiously this view was made familiar to Catholics, to be struggled against fiercely by all those who were not absolutely under the Jesuit and Spanish influence. Parsons was indefatigable in writing letters, addresses, and memoranda in favour of this view, and the absolute quiescence of the moderate English Catholics when at last the Armada appeared in the Channel, and their loyalty through the crisis, was largely due to the unwise forcing of the idea of a Spanish Sovereign over England by the Jesuit propaganda.

Elizabeth was no less active than the other threatened interests in her efforts to escape from the position in which she found herself. Still hoping against hope that the old policy of advance and retire might again be successful, she and Burghley strove heroically to arrange some form of peace congress with Parma through Andrea de Loo. It was not easy, for neither side was in a yielding mood in matters of procedure; but Philip said that he saw no harm in entertaining the advances, which he knew from the first he did not intend to have any result other than to lull Elizabeth into a false security, whilst his preparations advanced. The Burghley party in Elizabeth’s Court had all the Puritans against them, and, more strongly still, the blue water school of sailors, who for years past had shown by their deeds that the Spaniards were no match for them at sea. “Why wait to be attacked on our own coasts,” was their constant argument, “when we can go and crush our enemies before even they can leave port?”

The English ships had finer lines and lower bows than the Spaniards. They could sail several points nearer the wind; and the need for ocean attack and defence had developed an entirely new school of seamanship, depending upon celerity of movement, broadside armament low down, by which the hulls of the enemy might be riddled between wind and water, whereas the Spanish ships depended still largely upon bulk, needful for the carriage of cargoes from the Indies, and the old tradition descended from the Mediterranean galleys of heavy armaments fore and aft. The attack in the Spanish system consisted only in grappling with the foe and pouring soldiers on board of him, the vessel being less of a fighting entity than a conveyance to bring the fighting-men on each side into contact, as galleys had been. Under Drake the English sailors had developed an ideal entirely distinct from this, namely, to avoid grappling, and by superior handiness of the craft to cripple the hulls of the enemy, and make them unseaworthy and incapable of manœuvring. Again and again the English sailors had proved that the new methods were effective; and whenever there was a chance of meeting the Spaniards at sea, they eagerly sought it.

It was this combination of sailors and the Puritans or Liberals, led by Leicester, that sought once more to force Elizabeth’s hand in the midst of the negotiations for the peace conference with Parma early in the spring of 1587. The Portuguese spies in England continued to report to Mendoza the great preparations being made for a naval expedition, by Drake, in Plymouth and the Thames. Elizabeth and Burghley deeply distrusted a policy of daring aggression, and hesitated much to allow an attack upon Spain, though Leicester’s influence and Drake’s confidence ultimately carried the day. The secret of the destination of Drake’s fleet was well kept. The pretence was cleverly maintained to the last that it was one more attempt to aid Don Antonio—this time, it was said, to go to the Indies; and Mendoza, who reported almost daily to Philip what he heard, was hoodwinked all through. Drake arrived in Plymouth from the Thames on the 23rd March, in a hurry to get away, for fear the Queen would alter her mind and order him back. He had obtained her commission—“to prevent or withstand any enterprise against her Highness’s dominions, and especially to prevent the concentration of the King of Spain’s squadrons”—and he was authorised to “distress the ships as much as possible, both in the havens and on the high seas.” Drake knew that as soon as he left Court attempts by the moderate party would be made to spoil and hamper his plans, for his Vice-Admiral, Borough, a Queen’s officer, had been sent with him only to serve as a clog upon his actions, and Elizabeth was still full of faith in the insincere peace negotiations. Sure enough, only a few hours after he hurriedly sailed from Plymouth, a royal order came thither from London, happily too late, “to forbear to enter forcibly any of the said King’s ports or havens, or to offer any violence to his towns or ships in harbour, or to do any act of hostility on land.” Drake took very good care that these timid orders never reached him until too late to stay his hand, and went on his way as usual, in defiance of Borough’s warning.

Slowly, and with infinite difficulty, stores, arms, and material were being collected in Spain. The roads were bad, communications laborious, and Philip’s centralising methods clogged the wheels of progress. Old Santa Cruz was labouring early and late, in Lisbon, making ready such great ships as could be collected in the Tagus; whilst in the ports of Andalusia the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the great magnate of the Province, had seized for the King all the merchant ships and stores; and was actively getting ready to sail from Cadiz and join Santa Cruz in Lisbon in the early summer, and, together with other vessels expected from Italy and the Biscay ports, attempt the conquest of England. Thus matters stood in April, 1587. Santa Cruz was almost in despair, for he profoundly disliked the modification of his plans adopted by Philip, by which the bulk of the army under Parma was to cross in small boats to England when the Armada should arrive off the North Foreland to protect its passage from Dunkirk to the Thames, and the command was to be divided, Santa Cruz to be supreme at sea and Parma on land. The ships in Lisbon were still unready, and the crews and soldiers were joining in mere driblets from distant parts of Spain. The provisions, too, for all his host came in slowly, and much of the stores rotted before they could be used. The ships from the eastern ports of Spain and from Naples and Messina were lagging; for delay was inevitable when every detail had to be directed by one overworked old man far away.

Then suddenly, on the 18th April, 1587, the people of Cadiz saw in the offing a fleet of thirty white sail. “Some contingent of the Armada,” thought the Duke of Medina Sidonia, busy with his stores inside the harbour. It was nothing so welcome as that; for it was the terrible Drake himself, with his stout ships, bent upon mischief, notwithstanding Elizabeth’s timid wavering and her Admiral Borough’s warning. Looking up the harbour of Cadiz, Drake could see a forest of masts, many a tall ship, he knew, that was intended for the subjugation of his country. They were, for the most part, store ships, nearly a hundred of them altogether; and though they were crammed with provisions and material, neither their guns nor their crews were on board. Into the harbour dashed Drake, sinking the big galleon at the entrance that served as a guardship, and disdaining the fire of the protecting forts, and soon he had all the harbour at his mercy. The very name of Drake appalled the Spaniards, and without impeachment he turned adrift and set on fire some twenty-five of the principal ships. Soon the great crowd of galleons was a blazing ruin, and in the three weeks that followed Drake deliberately annihilated in the harbour of Cadiz the results of a year’s work and vast expenditure. Then, on the 1st May, 1587, he leisurely sailed away, secure in the knowledge that, come what might, no invasion of England by Spanish ships was possible for that summer.

In the Tagus, at Lisbon, there still lay the fifty great galleons, under Santa Cruz, which were to form the principal fighting force of the Armada, and as Drake stood off the mouth of the river, they looked tempting. He was more than half inclined to sail in and serve them as he had served the Cadiz ships; but he did not know whether they had their great guns on board or not. Whilst he was ascertaining this by his spies the peremptory orders came to him from the Queen that he was to provoke the King of Spain no more: the great fighting ships of Spain, with no crews or guns on board, were left unattacked, to Drake’s abiding regret, and the chance of making the invasion of England by Spain impossible altogether was missed through Elizabeth’s belief that by her usual methods she might avoid war, even at this eleventh hour. The damage done by Drake was in great part irreparable. Not only were many stores and ships destroyed in Cadiz, but for weeks afterwards the English fleet lay off the coast of Portugal, capturing great numbers of vessels loaded with pipe staves,[284] for the water and wine casks of the Armada. These could not be quickly replaced, and their loss led to the short and bad water supply in the fleet, which was one of its worst calamities. When Drake sailed away, Spain was crippled for a time; and the capture of the rich Indies galleon, _San Felipe_, completed the discomfiture of King Philip, who had no alternative now but to order Santa Cruz to make ready his ships in Lisbon, in a hurry, not now to invade England, but to prevent Drake from intercepting and plundering the silver fleet, whose safe arrival in Spain would alone enable Philip to proceed with his plan of invasion in the following year. The injury inflicted by Drake’s raid was a terrible one to Philip, but he plodded on, still convinced of the goodness of his methods and the ultimate certain victory of his cause.

FROM THE PAINTING BY MARC GHEERAEDTS AT THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY]

To Parma, in Flanders, the news of Drake’s attack brought anguish and discouragement beyond words, for he was less blinded by fervour than his uncle was, and was brought nearer to his practical difficulties. He was a great commander and saw plainly the weak points of Philip’s scheme for the Armada, so far as it was communicated to him. A divided command and strictly limited authority were repugnant to him, a sovereign Prince and practically supreme in Spanish Flanders; and from the first he was determined that no blame for the failure which he feared would attend the attempt should be laid at his doors in consequence of his exceeding the strict letter of the King’s written instructions. He had strained every nerve to muster and equip his troops to be ready for the expected arrival of Santa Cruz with his fleet in the summer of 1587, and now he found himself with a large force of men, and short of money, provisions, and stores for their maintenance. But he was a general of resource, and utilised his army to capture the Sluys and invest Ostend and so improve his position before the English Peace Commissioners, the Earls of Derby and Hertford, Lord Cobham, Sir James Crofts, and Drs. Dale and Herbert, went over in the autumn of 1587, in the chimerical hope of making peace with Philip. Leicester, Walsingham, and the sailors wondered aloud how her Majesty could be so blind as to believe that peace with Philip was possible now. Exhortations and prayers reached Elizabeth, from those who knew Philip’s intentions well, that she would allow another bold stroke to be dealt upon the enemy’s heart; but her parsimony and belief in her methods made her turn a deaf ear to all such urging, and England still stood unready in the face of danger so imminent and dire.

Whilst Parma was still spinning matters out with the English Peace Commissioners on fine-drawn points of etiquette and procedure, in order to give time for really illuminating instructions to reach him from Philip, and Elizabeth was living still in her fool’s paradise, the plan of the Armada was finally settled; for Philip, dead against the advice of his seamen, had determined to send out the expedition at all risks, in the autumn of 1587, as soon as Santa Cruz returned from convoying the silver fleet. The letter in which he conveyed his plan to Parma on the 4th September, 1587, is worth quoting at some length.[285] The Armada, under Santa Cruz, was to sail up the Channel, avoiding, if possible, any decisive engagement, until it had reached the Straits of Dover and had joined hands with Parma. “We calculate that by the time you have invested Ostend you will have 30,000 men ready for the main business, whilst 16,000 Spanish infantry, a part of them veterans, will go in the Armada from here, the whole force of soldiers and sailors in the fleet reaching 22,000 men. I have decided that as soon as the Marquis of Santa Cruz returns with the flotillas to Cape St. Vincent ... he shall leave them in charge of the galleys, and himself go straight to Lisbon, where he will take command of the fleet which will there await him, and, with God’s blessing, sail direct for the English Channel. On his arrival he will anchor off Margate, having given notice to you at Dunkirk of his approach. You in the meanwhile will be quite ready, and when you see the passage assured by the arrival of the fleet off Margate or at the mouth of the Thames, you will, if the weather permits, immediately cross over in the boats you will have ready. You and the Marquis will then co-operate, you being in command on land, and he at sea; and, with the help of God, will carry through the main business successfully. Until you have crossed, the Marquis is not to be diverted by anything from assuring your passage. His taking possession of Margate will cut the communications of the enemy, and prevent him to some extent from concentrating his forces. When you have landed (the Marquis giving you six thousand selected Spanish infantry as ordered),[286] I am inclined to leave to the Marquis’s discretion what he should do with the fleet, whether to stay and ensure the passage of our people from Flanders to England and intercept any foreign aid that might be sent to the English, or to go and capture some port and divert the enemy’s strength; or else he might go and seize English ships lying in various ports, to deprive them of maritime forces, upon which their strength mainly depends. You will settle this point between you, the Marquis carrying out your joint decision, whilst you will hasten to the front to conduct the enterprise on the lines laid down. I trust to God, in whose service it is done, that success may attend the enterprise, and that yours may be the hand to execute it.”

The advice of all his best soldiers and sailors had failed to move Philip on one point because he knew that it meant delay, and he was ready now to risk everything rather than wait any longer. “We are quite aware of the risk incurred by sending a heavy fleet in the winter through the Channel without a sure harbour; but the various reasons which render this course necessary are sufficient to counterbalance the objections. As it is all for His good cause, God send good weather. The most important of all things is that you should be so completely ready when the Marquis arrives at Margate that you may be able to do your part at once without delay. You will see the danger of any tardiness, the Armada having to wait there with you unready; as until your passage is effected they will have no harbour for shelter, whereas when you have crossed he will have the safe, spacious river Thames. Otherwise he will be at the mercy of the weather, and if, which God forbid, any misfortune should happen to him you will understand what a state it would put us into. All will be assured, please God, by your good understanding; but do not forget that the forces collected and the vast monetary responsibility incurred make it extremely difficult for any such expedition to be organised again, if they [the English] escape us this time; whilst the obstacles and divisions which may, and certainly will, arise next summer, force us to carry through the enterprise this year or fail altogether. I hope this will not occur, but that great success may attend us by God’s grace, since you are to be the instrument, and I have bountifully supplied you with money. I have told you how all our prestige is now at stake, and how entirely my tranquillity depends upon success being achieved, and I now once more earnestly enjoin you to justify the trust I place in you. Pray send me word that there shall be no shortcomings in this respect, as I shall be full of anxiety till I hear from you.”

Thus, like a desperate gambler, Philip at last, after all these years of waiting and planning, was ready to stake everything—fleet, army, resources, prestige, and the cause for which he had lived—with the chances of success and the warnings of experience dead against him. For years past his expert advisers had been telling him how much superior in staunchness and seaworthiness the English ships were to his, that the new naval construction and armament, by which the artillery fire was delivered low and from the broadside, gave an enormous advantage to the handy English craft, which, by reason of their finer lines and weatherly qualities, could avoid fighting at close quarters. Santa Cruz, Parma, and Mendoza had pointed out to him the rashness of taking a vast, unwieldy fleet in the late autumn, the worst period of the year, up the Channel without a harbour of refuge in case of contrary winds or tempest; again and again he had been told that his ships were still unready, his stores and arms unconcentrated, and his army but partially mustered in various provinces of Spain and Italy. All this he knew, and yet in the face of disorganisation, incapacity, and corruption in his administration, of almost insuperable material difficulties in collecting and supplying such an enormous fleet as that contemplated, the growing alarm and the opposition of all Christendom to his designs, he trusted, in the absence of all the mundane elements of success, to the special intervention of Providence in his favour. Patience and diplomacy had brought the possibility of success within his reach, but patience and diplomacy can be worked by the methods of a chess-player in a monastic cell, whilst armies and fleets must be raised, organised, and led by practical men on the spot, and this was where Philip failed. All power and initiative must be his, whilst he sat upon his office chair, annotating, checking, and dictating from morn till night, but never coming within hundreds of miles of executive action.

In obedience to Philip’s fervent exhortations Parma did his best, keeping his army of German, Italian, and Walloon mercenaries in good heart and readiness whilst the sham peace preliminaries went on. Most of the English Commissioners themselves were soon satisfied that nothing would come of their mission, for months were wasted in discussing and wrangling over such questions as the place of meeting, the sufficiency of powers, and the points to be discussed, though Croft, representing the moderate Catholic party in England, strained his loyalty to the utmost to conciliate Parma.[287] But still the Armada came not, though the winter of 1587 wore on and Parma’s painfully gathered thirty thousand men-at-arms were rapidly melting away, demoralised by short commons and dying by thousands of the plague. Not even Parma’s extremity could move Santa Cruz to take a course that he knew would end in disaster. When he returned to Lisbon from convoying the silver fleet, he told Philip flatly that it would be certain disaster to take the Armada out at such a season of the year, the ships and men, moreover, being unready. Scorn and derision were poured upon the old admiral by the nobles and soldiers, as well as by the bureaucrats who were at the King’s elbow, though the sailors who had met the English on many seas knew that Santa Cruz was right. “Once let us grapple with the heretics,” cried the vapouring men-at-arms, “and all will be well; the sailorman’s task is but to bring us face to face with the foe and we shall know how to deal with him.” Philip rarely reproached those who served him, but even his almost inexhaustible patience gave way, and his curt, cold words of reproach to Santa Cruz for his tardiness in serving him broke the old hero’s heart, and in February, 1588, there passed to his grave the one man in Spain who perchance might have rescued from otherwise inevitable catastrophe the Armada and the mighty freight of hopes it bore.

Philip was, indeed, nearly at his wits’ end, though personally he never lost faith in ultimate success. Sixtus was growing more and more sarcastic, and unwilling to pledge himself further to a policy which he now understood was making religion the stalking-horse of politics. Olivares might rail insolently at the Pontiff as a garrulous old curmudgeon, Cardinal Allen and Father Parsons, by word and pen, might, and did, urge with bland eloquence the saintliness of the enterprise and the holy aims of the Catholic King; but all Europe now was aware and apprehensive of Philip’s overwhelming schemes—not against England alone, it was feared, but against all those who questioned the political supremacy of Spain. By every courier went frantic appeals and remonstrances from Parma to Philip, as week after week passed and no Armada appeared in the Straits of Dover. The army was getting out of hand, he said, and, what with plague and discontent, would soon disappear altogether, whilst of money he had none, and even his credit was exhausted.

In December, 1587, Philip, apparently in desperation, thought that Parma, failing the coming of the Armada, might have made a dash across the Straits on his own account, and have captured England by a _coup-de-main_, whilst the peace preliminaries were being discussed. Parma, who was a practical soldier, was furious at such a suggestion, as well he might be. Writing to the King on the 31st January, 1588, he asks how could he be expected to do what he had the King’s strict orders to avoid doing. He had laid down clearly, he said, the necessary conditions of success; namely, that the flat boats and skiffs, too small for fighting and unfit to weather a freshet, much less a storm, should be ensured an absolutely unimpeded passage across, whilst the French should be kept busy at home, and the Dutch rebels rendered powerless for harm. “Your Majesty ordered me to undertake this business, and be fully prepared, though the time given to me was short and my resources were limited. I have done my best to perform the impossible in order to please you and carry out my duty.... Affairs have been unduly drawn out, both men and money have been delayed beyond the time indicated, and particularly the Spanish troops, who are the sinew of the whole business, and who have, after all, come in less number than agreed upon, and so dilapidated and maltreated as to look unfit for service for some time to come. The Italians and Germans have dwindled in consequence of having to march quickly in very bad weather, and they are so badly housed to keep them near the ports that many are missing; and our men are dying and falling away rapidly. I have strained every nerve to keep them near the coast to be ready for the arrival of Santa Cruz with the Armada ... and now I see that everything has turned out wrong and contrary to my hopes. Secrecy, which was of the utmost importance, has not been maintained. From Spain, Italy, and elsewhere come full details of the expedition. The King of France, as well as the League, has raised enormous forces, and they, being Frenchmen, are certainly not likely to be in our favour. Holland and Zeeland have armed as promptly as usual, and have prevented the few ships of our fleet in Antwerp from getting out, whilst the English themselves are preparing for their defence with great energy.... If the Marquis had come in good time the crossing might then have been easily effected, by God’s help, as neither the English nor the Hollanders and Zeelanders were then ready.”

Then Parma passionately protests against Philip’s attitude. Let the King, he says, tell him plainly what he wishes him to do. He will do it at all risks and at any cost; but to give him orders to do one thing and expect him to do another in quite impossible circumstances is unfair. The position has changed, he continues, and the force brought by the Armada must be an overwhelming one to clear the seas or the troops from Flanders cannot cross. “The delay in the coming of the Armada is causing the total ruin of Flanders, and is hardly less disastrous to the rest of the States. The country can bear the burden but a short time longer. The greatest trouble of all is my lack of money. The cost of maintaining the boats, the keep of the soldiers, the subsidy to Guise and Lorraine, and the contract with the German mercenaries, is all so great that your Majesty must provide me with a great sum of money. If I run short, as indeed I am doing, your Majesty may be certain that evil will befall and all the past expenditure and effort will be wasted.”[288]

Two months after this, when the death of Santa Cruz had cast a still deeper gloom over the prospects of the Armada, Parma, now quite disillusioned, and convinced that the great enterprise would fail, urged Philip earnestly to allow him to turn the feigned negotiations for peace into real ones. “I should fail in my duty,” he wrote, “if I did not tell your Majesty that the general opinion is that if the English are proceeding straightforwardly, as they profess, and their alarm at your Majesty’s preparations and great power really inclines them towards you, it would be better to conclude peace with them. We should thus end the misery and calamity of these afflicted States, the Catholic religion would be established in them, and your ancient dominion restored. Besides this, we should not jeopardise the great fleet which your Majesty has raised, and we should escape the danger of some disaster causing you to fail in the conquest of England whilst losing your hold of the Netherlands. It is thought that it would be much best to try to settle and pacify everything during your own happy reign, so that all might prosper by the grace of God and your Majesty’s goodness. Nothing more honourable and beneficent could happen to us, no step would be more heartily welcomed by your vassals, or more effectually check your rivals, especially the heretics, than a good and honourable peace. We should thus avoid the danger of disaster. If the enterprise were in the condition we expected it to be, and secrecy had been kept, we might, with God’s blessing, have looked more confidently for a successful issue. But things are not as we intended. The English have had time to arm by land and sea, and form alliances with the Danes and the German Protestants.... They are well aware of our plans, and we shall have plenty of work to do in effecting a landing and advancing afterwards, especially if our force is inadequate.”[289]

And thus, point by point, the greatest soldier of his time lays bare in letter after letter the weakness of Philip’s position and the hopelessness of success in the circumstances. But to all Parma’s remonstrances and advice the King had but one cold, precise reply. The expedition was to go in God’s own service, and it would be duly carried through by His help. That being the case, Parma could only stand more stiffly than ever upon the absolute fulfilment of his conditions, without which he knew that failure and disgrace would befall him. The sea must be kept clear of enemies before he would embark a man for England, and he must have six thousand Spanish veterans from the Armada or he would not undertake the conquest. To Philip’s embarrassments there seemed no end. His greatest military officer thus predicted disaster, and would take no responsibility beyond the letter of his instructions, and Santa Cruz, his greatest seaman, had assumed the same attitude for similar reasons.

But the death of Santa Cruz in February plunged the King into deeper difficulty than ever; for although it allowed him to control the details of the command more completely than Santa Cruz would have allowed him to do, he had no officer of sufficient rank, authority, and experience to replace the dead admiral. Seamen he had, many of them fine mariners from the Biscay coast, who had commanded the great flotillas from the Indies, and had faced with varied fortune the English plundering craft any time these twenty years; but the tradition lingered that the seaman was a mere drudge to carry the nobler soldier into the fight, and the quarrelsome, haughty soldier nobles scorned to serve under a man who was a seaman only. The men in nominal command of the great ships were nearly always military officers whose orders the shipmasters obeyed. So although Oquendo, Bertondona, and Recalde, with a half score of others, were as splendid sailors as ever ploughed the seas, the supreme command of the Armada could not be given to such as they. The Spanish nobles were jealous of each other, each standing upon his dignity in a way that to modern men looks ridiculous, but which to them was a matter of the first concern in life.

The man to be appointed to command, since the King himself could not go, must be of rank so exalted as to overtop the rest, and yet so amenable to Philip’s control as to allow the fleet to be commanded practically by the King from his writing-table. The only man in Spain who seemed to unite in himself these two qualities was appointed by Philip to lead the fleet upon which depended the fate of Spain and Catholic Christendom, and he was of all men the least fit to carry to success such a forlorn hope as the Armada—the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the magnate and admiral of Andalusia, who had been so busy collecting ships and stores in Cadiz and his other ports. He was a dignified noble of early middle age, well meaning and not without administrative ability in normal circumstances, though utterly unequal to deal with critical conditions. His high rank was sufficient to ensure the obedient respect of the other nobles and to hold the sailor commanders in awe. But, as he plaintively protested to the King, in dismay, when he was first informed of his appointment, he was utterly inexperienced in practical warfare both on land and sea. He knew nothing of navigation, he was always wretchedly seasick as soon as he lost sight of land, and he was quite unable to bear the expense which such a command entailed. His wife and friends were more emphatic still, and ridiculed the idea that such a poor creature as this should assume a responsibility so tremendous. Perhaps Philip was not sorry to have a weak and timid commander who would not dare to depart a hair’s breadth from his orders. At all events, his mind was made up; and Medina Sidonia, with a shrinking heart and unwilling spirit, was forced to go to Lisbon to replace the great Santa Cruz as the Captain-General of the Invincible Armada.[290]