# The Royal Navy, a History from the Earliest Times to the Present/Volume 1/Chapter 14

CHAPTER XIV.
MILITARY HISTORY OF THE NAVY, 1485–1603.
HENRY VII. loved commerce, and was himself a great trader; he was a miser, and disliked any expenditure which did not appear to him to be absolutely necessary; his title to the throne was bad, and his seat upon it was consequently precarious; and he was a wise man, possessed of marked diplomatic ability. His qualities moulded his policy. His reign was, upon the whole, pacific; and, although he invaded France, he had no insatiate thirst for military glory, and no tyrannous lust of conquest; and he gladly seized the first opportunity for concluding a fairly honourable peace. His only other important foreign expedition, that for the repression of Ravenstein, in 1492, was undertaken in the interests of commerce.
Upon his accession, he appointed John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, to be Lord High Admiral from September 21st, 1485, and this officer held the post until after the king’s death.
It was Henry’s misfortune that the fallen House of York remained for many years popular with the common people of the country, and especially of Ireland, and that the lost cause still had a most powerful and unscrupulous supporter in the person of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, a sister of Edward IV. Her court became the natural headquarters of all conspirators who sought the overthrow of the House of Tudor.
The best possible claimant among the Yorkist princes to the crown was Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, son of George, Duke of Clarence and nephew of Edward IV.; but Warwick was a prisoner in the hands of Henry. As, therefore, Warwick was not available as a tool for the malcontents, a false Warwick was invented in the person of Lambert Simnel, a baker’s son, who appears to have been carefully trained for his part by Richard Simon, a ​priest in the confidence of the Yorkist leaders. Lambert was recognised by the Earl of Kildare, Lord Deputy of Ireland, by John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, a nephew of Edward IV., and, of course, by the unscrupulous Margaret of Burgundy; and at Dublin the pretender was proclaimed King of England, as Edward VI., in May, 1487.
Henry replied by parading the real Warwick through the streets of London; but this measure seems to have had little or no effect upon the infatuated people, and the movement continued. It may have been owing to Henry's parsimony that the Narrow Seas were so inefficiently policed as to allow the pretender and his friends, accompanied by two thousand Germans, under Martin Schwartz, to land in Lancashire; but it is more probable that the king, realising the importance of capturing his impudent rival, deliberately preferred to permit him to invade England. Here Simnel gathered few fresh adherents, except a small body of men under Sir Thomas Broughton. He determined to attack Newark; but Henry judiciously placed himself between the rebels and that town, and so, on June 16th, 1487, provoked the battle of Stoke, where, after a well-fought action, Simnel was defeated and taken. His patron Simon was imprisoned for life. Hardly one of the remaining supporters of his claims who happened to be present escaped with his life. As for Simnel himself, he was contemptuously made a scullion in the royal kitchen, and subsequently promoted to be a falconer.
Edward, Lord Woodville, was the indirect cause of the hostilities with France. This nobleman, an uncle of the queen, was Governor of the Isle of Wight; and, happening to be in sympathy with the Duchess of Brittany, who was then in conflict with Charles VIII. of France, he took advantage of his position, and, in spite of Henry's positive orders to do nothing of the kind, raised four hundred men early in 1488, and crossed to the assistance of the princess. He and his followers were cut to pieces at St. Aubin, on July 28th, and the disaster, though perhaps richly merited, gave rise to so much public feeling in England, that Henry felt himself obliged to send to Brittany eight thousand men under Lord Brooke. But he still had some kind of secret arrangement with Charles, and possibly no further forces would have been dispatched, had not Anne of Brittany, in 1491, betrayed her English friends and astonished Europe by marrying her whilom enemy Charles VIII.
​In 1490, Scotland, which, owing to the unworthy machinations of Henry VII. with the object of seizing the person of the young king, James IV., had no cause to spare England, dealt her two small but stinging blows at sea, and at the same time discovered that she possessed at least one exceptionally able naval officer. This was Sir Andrew Wood, of Largs. Upon the murder of James III. he had declared, against the Council, for that monarch's son, James IV., and he served the new king bravely; for not only did he, with two ships, capture five English vessels, but also, when three more were sent against him under the command of Stephen Bull, he took them likewise. The only capture from the Scots during these operations seems to have been the Margaret, which was added to the navy. James IV. established the first efficient navy ever possessed by Scotland. Towards the end of his reign he had thirteen men-of-war, the largest of which, the Michael, was, in her day, a marvel of size. And in Sir Andrew Wood, and the equally famous Andrew Barton, he had commanders who, in a very short period, gave the young Scots navy all the prestige it needed. Both Wood, and Barton whose exploits will be noted later, were somewhat piratical in their methods, although they acted under letters of marque; but piracy — especially on land, and where cattle was concerned — was a recognised and characteristic Scots institution until a much later day. It must also be remembered that the Scots of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were, in most respects, less civilised than their southern neighbours.
The marriage of Anne with Charles VIII. gave Brittany to France, and was undoubtedly a great blow at English prestige, the more so seeing that she had been previously supposed to be about to marry the Archduke Maximilian, the ally of Henry. These and other considerations determined Henry to appear to fall in with the obvious desires of his people for a war with France; and in 1491 and 1492 great preparations were made in consequence. But, privately, the king had no wish for hostilities. The acts of Woodville had forced his hand in 1488; the excitement of his people might force his hand again. The king, however, made up his mind that he would not be driven so long as he could stand still; and that if he should be driven, he would do his utmost to bring the war to a speedy conclusion. In the meantime, the patriotism of Parliament and the enthusiasm of his subjects ​supplied him with large sums of money, some of which were expended in preparations, but still more of which remained in the coffers of the tenacious monarch, much to his personal advantage.
An occasion soon arose for pleasing the people by dealing a bye-blow at France, while, at the same time benefiting commerce, and obliging the Archduke Maximilian. A subject of the latter, Philip von Kleve-Ravenstein, was in rebellion against his sovereign, and, aided by citizens of Ghent and Bruges, had seized the town of Sluis, and had formed a piratical stronghold there. It is supposed that he was in receipt of some countenance from France, for his master, Maximilian, was, like Henry, on unfriendly terms with Charles, and Philip himself subsequently entered the French service. Be this as it may, it is certain that the pirate chief had done much harm to English trade and shipping in the North Sea, and that for this reason, if for no other, Henry was glad to tender his help to Maximilian against the rebel. A squadron of twelve ships was in consequence fitted out, and the command of it was entrusted to Sir Edward Poynings.
Sir Edward cruised at sea for a few days, and then approached Sluis, where he learnt that the place was besieged on the land side by the Elector of Saxony. He therefore blockaded it by water, and attacked it on that side. Its main defences consisted of two towers or castles, which were connected by a bridge of boats. Poynings made attempts on one or other of these castles every day for twenty days in succession; but failed to produce any impression, and suffered considerable losses, until he succeeded, during a night assault, in burning the bridge of boats. This brought about the surrender of the town to the elector, and of the castles to the English. In the course of the siege, a brother of the Lord High Admiral, the Earl of Oxford, lost his life.
In the same year (1492), on October 2nd, Henry reached Dover with an army of twenty-five thousand men and sixteen hundred horses, and was transported to Calais, by the aid of a large fleet which had been assembled for the purpose. About October 19th, he laid siege to Boulogne; but he had not been many days before the town ere peace with France was in principle agreed on. Peace ​was, in fact, signed at Etaples on November 3rd; and on December 17th, the king returned to London. The chief article in the stipulations was the payment to Henry of the sum of £149,000. Another was that the person calling himself Richard, Duke of York, should receive no more shelter and assistance in France.
This person was in reality one Perkin Warbeck, or Osbeck, supposed to be the son of a Jew of Tournay, but by a few believed to be a natural son of Edward IV. He claimed to be the Prince Richard whom Richard III. is generally charged with having caused to be murdered in the Tower; and in 1492 he appeared as such in Cork, and was so well received there that Charles VIII. of France invited him to Paris. He had previously been recognised by the unscrupulous Margaret of Burgundy. But, as has been seen, the Treaty of Etaples drove him out of France; and he went to his patroness Margaret. His presence in Flanders encouraged a dangerous conspiracy in England; but Henry was ruthless in searching it out and stifling it; and when, on July 7th, 1495, the pretender, furnished by the duchess with a few ships and troops, landed some men near Sandwich, the intruders were at once captured by the country people. This miserable attempt led to the hanging of one hundred and sixty persons.
Warbeck returned to his patroness in Flanders; but the conclusion in February, 1496, of the treaty known as "The Great Intercourse," between England and Burgundy, proved that commercial advantages were stronger and weightier than dynastic considerations. The treaty stipulated for his expulsion; and the pretender went, first to Ireland, and then to Scotland. James IV. welcomed him as the lawful King of England, and gave him in marriage Lady Katherine Gordon, a member of the Scots royal house. Twice Warbeck attempted an invasion from the north. By July, 1497, James had grown tired, if not suspicious, of him; and Warbeck, escorted from Scots waters by the celebrated Andrew ​Barton, again became a fugitive. He was leading a precarious existence in Ireland, when he was invited by some malcontents of Cornwall and Devonshire to join them. On September 27th, 1497, he accordingly arrived in Whitsand Bay, near Penzance, with four small vessels, and landed with a few followers. He took St. Michael's Mount, gathered as many as three thousand men, and laid siege to Exeter; but on the approach of Giles, Lord Daubeney, with the royal forces, he fled to Taunton, and subsequently to Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, where, on October 5th, he surrendered himself. His life was spared, and he was generously treated, until repeated attempts to escape, and participation in a plot with the Earl of Warwick, led to his execution in 1499.
During the earlier years of the reign of Henry VII. there were fewer examples than might have been expected of piracy and unofficial warfare in the Narrow Seas; and in 1497, the year of Warbeck's surrender, England and France came to an agreement which had the effect of rendering such proceedings less common than ever, especially in time of nominal peace between the two countries. A treaty was signed, in pursuance of which shipowners were required, ere sending their vessels to sea, to furnish good and efficient bail that they would observe the peace.
In the year 1500, the plague then raging in London, the king and his family went to Calais, arriving there on May 8th, and returning about the end of June. Thereafter, until the death of Henry, there were few events which, by any stretch of the imagination, can be associated with naval affairs. The voyages and explorations undertaken during the reign are separately dealt with elsewhere; and it only remains to note that when, in 1506, Philip of Austria, who had succeeded to the kingdom of Castille, and who was on the way, with his queen, from the Netherlands to Spain, was driven by bad weather into Weymouth, and, contrary to the advice of his suite, ventured ashore, he was speciously detained by Henry, under various polite pretexts, until he had consented to a renewal, very advantageous for England, of the treaty of commerce between the two countries, and had engaged to deliver up Edmund de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, who had fled the kingdom, and who, being a nephew of Edward IV., was a possible thorn in Henry's ​side. The duke, on his surrender, was sent to the Tower. The king died at Richmond on April 22nd, 1509.
Henry VIII. came to the throne, a handsome and accomplished young man, in his eighteenth year. He was as able as his father, but in every other respect utterly unlike him. Generous, genial, and fond of amusement and display, he was also intensely ambitious; and, as his treasury was full, and the state of Europe was troubled, he was able to indulge his inclinations.
In the second year of his reign he joined Ferdinand of Spain and Maximilian of Germany in the Holy League against Louis XII. of France; and, about the middle of May, dispatched a body of a thousand archers under Thomas, Lord d'Arcy, to co-operate with Ferdinand against the Moors. The expedition left Plymouth, escorted by four men-of-war, and landed at Cadiz on June 1st. Its mere appearance was sufficient to secure the objects for which it had been demanded. The Moors made terms with the king, and the English, dismissed with presents, returned, without fighting, about August.
In July of the same year, another force of fifteen hundred men, under Sir Edward Poynings, was sent into Flanders to assist the Duke of Burgundy against the Duke of Gelderland. After effecting the desired ends, it returned with small loss and much honour.
But by far the most important naval event of 1511 was the action off the Goodwin with the famous Scotsman, Andrew Barton. Barton had obtained from his sovereign letters of marque and reprisals against the Portuguese, who were alleged to have killed his father, and seized his father's ship, and who had afforded no satisfaction for the outrage. Barton had thereupon equipped two vessels, the Lion, carrying thirty-six, and the Jennet Perwyn, a "pinnace" or tender, carrying thirty guns, if we may trust the popular Elizabethan ballad on the subject. The one seems to have had upwards of three hundred, and the other, one hundred and eighty men on board. But, under pretext of cruising against the Portuguese, Barton seized and plundered many neutral vessels, including English ones, under the pretence that they had ​Portuguese goods on board; and complaints on the subject were made to Henry VIII.
To Lords Thomas and Edward Howard, the two sons of Thomas, Earl of Surrey, and subsequently second Duke of Norfolk, was apparently entrusted the duty of dealing with this piratical adventurer, According to the generally received account, they were assigned by the king two ships for the purpose; but Colliber, though he does not say on what authority, states that these young noblemen fitted out two vessels at their own charges. Lord Edward Howard, the younger of the two brothers, had been knighted for his bravery in the expedition against Kleve-Ravenstein, and, perhaps on account of the experience thus gained, was appointed senior officer.
The brothers fell in with Barton off the Goodwin, brought him to action, and, after a determined struggle, killed him, and captured his vessels. The ballad has it that they sunk the pinnace with all on board, and took only the Lion; but the fact is that both vessels were added to the English navy.
The ballad mentions Barton's use of a whistle, probably to direct his men; and adds that Lord Edward Howard, or Sir Edward, as he is commonly called, received as part of his reward Sir Andrew's jewel and chain. Soon afterwards, on August 15th, 1512, Lord Edward was made Lord High Admiral. The account of his death, presently to be given, shows that as badge of his rank he wore a gold whistle, besides a chain of gold nobles about his neck; and it may well be that this whistle was the one which had been taken from Barton, and that the practice, long continued by Lord High Admirals, of wearing a whistle as their ensign of office, commemorated the defeat and death of the noted Scots seaman.
​The Barton affair caused much ill blood between Scotland and England, and ultimately served as one of the pretexts for the invasion which ended at Flodden Field on September 9th, 1513. Henry's attitude, when James IV. remonstrated, was "that punishing pirates was never held a breach of peace among princes."
In 1512, in furtherance of the objects of the Holy League, Henry VIII. fitted out a fleet of twenty vessels, and entrusted it to the command of Lord Edward Howard, whom he had made Lord High Admiral for the purpose. The immediate mission of this force was to convoy an English army, under the Marquis of Dorset, to co-operate with King Ferdinand in the south of France. The troops were carried in Spanish ships; and the expedition sailed on May 16th, and reached the coast of Guipuscoa on June 8th.
As soon as the army had been landed, the Lord High Admiral proceeded on a cruise off the coasts of Brittany, where he attacked several places in the neighbourhood of Le Conquêt and Brest, and burnt some shipping.
[To face page 450.
A GALLEY. (From Joseph Furtenbach's 'Architectura Navalis.' Ulm, 1695.)
Howard, with his reinforced fleet, made the mouth of Camaret Bay on August 10th, just as the French fleet of thirty-nine sail was coming out. Grafton, his spelling modernised, shall continue the story.
Such was the English account. As might be expected, the French accounts bore a somewhat different complexion; and it is perhaps but fair to append Monsieur Guérin's summary of them, although it must be premised that he attributes the battle to a wrong year, that in some other particulars, his story is demonstrably incorrect, and that the entire description is obviously rather picturesque than historical in its mode of expression.
Portzmoguer appears in many French histories as "Primoguet"; and Hubert Veille, the continuator of Robert Gaguin, latinises him as Primangaius. The fight of the Cordelière, like that of the Vengeur in 1794, and of our own Revenge in 1591, has, thanks to patriotism, poetry, and vulgar tradition, been clouded over with the rosy mists of myth, and has become a naval legend. So much so is this the case that, although the French fleet in modern days has always included a vessel supposed to be named after the gallant captain of the Cordelière, he is commemorated, not as Portzmoguer, but as Primauguet.
Little or nothing was done during the winter, it being then and long afterwards the opinion of naval officers that it was almost madness to attempt to keep fleets of heavy ships at sea between the end of autumn and the beginning of spring. But in March, 1513, the Lord High Admiral sailed again for the coasts of Brittany, with forty-two men-of-war, besides small craft. Among his captains were Sir John Wallop, Sir Thomas Cheyne, Lord Ferrers, Sir Henry Sherburn, Sir William Sydney, Sir William Fitz-William, Sir Edward Echyngham, Sir Richard Cromwell, Stephen Bull, Compton, and others. The immediate object of the expedition seems to have been to clear the seas in order to permit Henry himself to pass over to France and personally conduct the campaign there.
Upon arriving off Brest, Lord Edward learnt that the French fleet lay within ready to sail, and awaiting only the appearance from the Mediterranean of the galleys under Prégent de Bidoux. He blockaded the enemy, who, to protect himself, threw up batteries on each side of the harbour, and drew across it four-and-twenty hulks ​chained together. The English fleet entered Le Goulet, the narrow mouth of the harbour, and, manning its boats, made a feint as if to attempt a landing. This brought down the French in great numbers to the shore; and while the admiral held them there, he advanced farther into the harbour, and landed a force on the peninsula of Plougastel, opposite the town. Bodies of men ravaged the country between the rivers Landerneau and Aven; but, owing to the lack of stores and provisions in the fleet, the operations could not then be followed up. Howard, however, continued to hold Le Goulet, and to blockade the port. These events took place in the first and second weeks of April.
The expected stores were meanwhile on their way, under the convoy of Sir Edward Echyngham, who, in a letter preserved in the Cottonian Library, has left an account of his proceedings. He left England on Wednesday, April 13th, and almost immediately sighted a vessel which he recognised as French, and which he chased until she made for the coast of Friesland. On Thursday, the following day, he sighted fifteen sail, which proved to be Spanish, and which appear to have joined company with him. On the morning of the 15th he fell in with three French ships and prepared for action, making arrangements to protect his people with cables and mattresses, encouraging his men, and getting ready his morris pikes and other weapons. Observing his good countenance, the French fled, making for Fécamp, under the walls of which Echyngham chased then. When beyond pursuit they fired at him. On the 16th the wind was S.S.W. Nothing particular happened on the two following days; but on the 19th, at 10 A.M., while chasing a Breton ship and some transports, Echyngham discovered several French galleys among the rocks. The chased transports were two miles from the galleys. The Spaniards are reported to have been extremely terrified on this occasion. Presently Echyngham sighted the masts of other ships, and, approaching them, found, when he had made about ten miles, that they were those of the English fleet in Brest Harbour. He went on board the Admiral, who received him very cordially; for the stores which he brought were sadly needed, the English, for the previous ten days, having been reduced to a single meal a day.
The French galleys which Echyngham had observed must have been those of Prégent de Bidoux from the Mediterranean. Four ​had originally started, but there were now six; and with them were four "foists" or tenders. Echyngham, of course, reported to Howard what he had seen, but no steps seem to have been then taken to deal with Prégent; and the omission had serious consequences; for on Friday, the 22nd, Prégent, with his galleys and tenders, made a dash at part of the English fleet, probably with the idea of joining his friends at Brest, or of forcing the raising of the blockade. He sank the vessel commanded by Compton, and so severely damaged another ship commanded by Stephen Bull, that she narrowly escaped foundering. One of the tenders was taken by the English boats; and Prégent, apparently baffled for the time, went into Blanc-sablon Bay, where he remained throughout Saturday, the 23rd, placing his squadron between the two islets at the mouth of the bay, and fortifying both.
On the night of Saturday he intended to disembark six thousand men on the little peninsula between the bays of Blanc-sablon and Le Conquêt, so as to take the galleys in the rear, but the movements of the enemy caused him to abandon his design and to take his fleet back to Le Goulet, it appearing to him that an effort was to be made to throw supplies into the town of Brest.
On St. Mark's Day, Monday the 25th, Howard determined to essay an attack upon the galleys, which were so situated that they could not be approached at all by large vessels, and that the batteries on the rocks commanded the approach of even boats. Captains Sir Thomas Cheyne, Sir John Wallop, Sir Henry Sherburn, and Sir William Sydney, with Lord Ferrers, were associated with him in the hazardous venture; and two small galleys, two large barges and two boats formed the cutting-out force, which advanced to the attack at about 4 P.M.
Howard, in the galley which he personally commanded, got alongside the galley of Prégent. He had told off fifteen men to fling into the French vessel his own anchor, so as to hold her, and to make fast the cable of it to his own capstan, with directions that if the French ships caught fire, the cable was to be cut; but either the cable was at once cut by the enemy, or the Englishmen failed to carry out their orders; for, as Howard, followed by a Spaniard named Charrau and sixteen others, clambered into the forecastle of Prégent's ship, his own craft swung clear and drifted away, leaving ​the admiral and his gallant companions fighting for their lives. At the instant of boarding, Charrau, who had forgotten his pistol, sent a servant back for it. When the man had found it he was unable to rejoin his master owing to the distance between the vessels. The admiral and his followers were quickly driven overboard by the pikes of the Frenchmen, and nearly all were drowned. Charrau's servant saw the admiral swimming, and hailing his galley to come to him. When he saw that he could not be saved, he took off his chain of gold nobles and his gold whistle of office, and threw them from him, so that the insignia of an English admiral, even after his death, might not fall into the hands of the enemy. After that he disappeared.
A second English craft came up, but her commander being killed, she retired. Cheyne, Wallop, Sydney and Sherburn all arrived not long afterwards; and the two latter boarded Prégent and did him some damage; but, seeing that the other vessels had withdrawn, and not knowing that the Lord High Admiral had ever quitted his galley, they also withdrew and rejoined the fleet.
For a short time Howard's fate was in doubt. To ascertain it, Cheyne, Cromwell, and Wallop presently went ashore in a boat under a flag of truce; and, upon hearing of their arrival, Prégent rode down on horseback to meet them. He assured them that his only prisoner was a seaman, but added that an officer with a gilt shield on his arm had boarded him, and had been thrust into the sea by the pikes; and that the prisoner declared this officer to have been the English admiral.
Lord Ferrers, in the second English galley, had engaged the other French vessels, but, after expending all his powder and shot and two hundred sheafs of arrows, saw that the admiral's galley had relinquished the combat, and followed it out of action.
On Saturday, April 30th, the fleet, in mourning, reached Plymouth; and on the following day it disembarked its sick, two of whom, according to Echyngham, fell dead as they landed.
Echyngham makes some suggestive comments on this lamentable disaster. He says that after Howard's death it was the unanimous wish of the fleet that the king would send it a commander who, in addition to noble birth, should possess wisdom and firmness, and who should make himself equally loved and feared, no fleet having ever been more in need of a man who would keep it in good order. ​To do better in the future against the French, there must be brave captains and better seamen; the rowers must be chained to their benches; there must be plenty of archers; and those who should distinguish themselves must be rewarded, and those who should fail in their duty, punished. These expressions seem to imply that Howard, brave and able though he certainly was, had suffered the discipline of the fleet to deteriorate; that some, at least, of the captains had disappointed expectations; that the seamen were inefficient; that the rowers bad abandoned their posts; and that these and other shortcomings had not been duly punished. It may well be that such were the facts. Yet Howard's devotion and gallant death deserve to be remembered.
Lord Thomas Howard, who had but recently returned from the expedition to Picardy, was at once appointed Lord High Admiral, in succession to his younger brother, and took the sea within a very few weeks; but, in the meantime, Prégent de Bidoux had followed up his success, landing some men in Sussex and ravaging the country. During the course of this raid he lost an eye. Lord Thomas Howard chased him back to Brest, then returned to convoy the king and a large army in four hundred vessels to Calais, and on July 1st, 1513, landed at Blanc-sablon Bay and pillaged the adjacent country in revenge for Prégent's raid upon Sussex. Thence he hurriedly returned to co-operate against the Scots, who were endeavouring by an invasion of England to get satisfaction for the death of Andrew Barton. Howard, who had been so intimately concerned in that affair, commanded the van of the English army when it crushed the invaders at Flodden Field on September the 9th. In the following year, the Lord High Admiral, for his various services, was created Earl of Surrey.
In 1514, Prégent again made a descent upon Sussex, and burnt Brighton, or, as it was then and long afterwards called, Brighthelmstone. Sir John Wallop was entrusted with the duty of carrying out the retaliatory measures, and he did it thoroughly, landing in Normandy and burning twenty-one towns and villages ere he withdrew. This was one of the last operations of the war of the ​Holy League, and for about seven years following there was peace with France.
The naval events of the peace were neither numerous nor important, the most striking of them being, perhaps, the transport by Vice-Admiral Sir William Fitz-William of Henry VIII. to Calais in 1520 to meet Francis I. of France on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Some notice of the ships engaged on that occasion will be found in the previous chapter.
The war recommenced in 1522, England again allying herself with the emperor. Vice-Admiral Sir William Fitz-William was at once sent to sea with a fleet of twenty-eight sail to protect English commerce and annoy French trade, which he effectually did. Another squadron of seven ships went to the Firth of Forth, and, as a precautionary measure, burnt such Scots vessels as lay there. A little later, on June 8th, a great compliment was paid to England and to her Lord High Admiral, by Surrey's appointment as commander-in-chief of the combined fleets of England and the Empire. The emperor's patent to Surrey, signed in London, after reciting that Henry had fitted out a fleet "under the command of the most illustrious Thomas, Earl of Surrey, our most dear cousin, Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter, Lord High Admiral of England, Wales, Ireland, Normandy, Gascony, and Aquitaine," and that it had been determined that the English and Imperial fleets were to act together, and that one captain-general was better than many, gave the command of the whole to the said Admiral of England, he to exercise exactly the same power and authority over the Imperial as over his own fleet.
Sailing immediately after the receipt of this patent, Surrey, with the combined fleet, appeared off Cherbourg, and, landing on June 13th, executed a rapid raid on the neighbouring country. After having returned to Portland, he recrossed the Channel, and on July 1st, landed near Morlaix, and took and sacked that town. He also burnt seventeen sail of French ships, and then carried a great amount of booty to Southampton, leaving Sir William Fitz-William to cruise in the Channel. At Southampton, Surrey found the emperor waiting for a passage to Spain. His majesty and suite enbarked on board the fleet on July 6th and were conveyed without mishap to Santander.
​In this and the following year, the Lord High Admiral served on land as well as afloat, and was continuously and very arduously employed. It was probably owing to his many preoccupations, and to the fact that he had to provide for the transport to France of an army of thirteen thousand men in August, 1523, that he did not cruise during that summer. Sir William Fitz-William commanded the main fleet of thirty-six vessels; and Anthony Poyntz was entrusted with an inferior, yet still considerable, squadron which cruised to the westward.
Fitz-William's orders were, if possible, to intercept John, Duke of Albany, who, after having been Admiral of France, had become Regent of Scotland, and who had collected in France a large force with which he intended to enter Scotland, or to invade England. The vice-admiral was so fortunate as to meet a Scoto-French division of twelve vessels which had on board, among other dignitaries, the Archbishop of Glasgow. He took two of these ships and chased the rest into Boulogne and Dieppe, off which places he left small blockading squadrons. With the rest of his fleet he ravaged the French coast, took and burnt Tréport, destroyed many vessels, and captured much booty; but he returned prematurely to England; and Albany, who had recognised the futility of attempting to cross the sea while Fitz-William was active there, and who had laid up his ships and quartered his troops ashore, no sooner learnt of the withdrawal of the vice-admiral than he quickly re-manned his vessels, sent his troops on board, and sailing with great promptitude, landed in Scotland on September 24th.
In the same year, one Duncan Campbell, described as a Scots pirate, was, according to Holinshed, taken after a long fight by John Arundel of Cornwall.
Peace was made with France in 1525; and thenceforward for many years, few naval events of sufficient importance to demand notice occurred. On July 16th, 1525, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, a natural son of the king by Elizabeth Blount, later, wife of Sir Gilbert Baron Tailbois, was, though only about nine years of age, appointed Lord High Admiral in supercession of Surrey, who ​had succeeded to the dukedom of Norfolk in 1524; but when Richmond died in 1536, the office was more deservedly conferred upon Sir William Fitz-William, K.G., who, in the following year was made Earl of Southampton and Lord Privy Seal, being already Treasurer of the Household and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. At the end of 1539, Southampton, with a fleet of sixty sail, escorted Anne of Cleves to England. This was almost his last naval service. In 1540 he was succeeded as Lord High Admiral by John, Lord Russell, afterwards Earl of Bedford; and he in turn was succeeded on January 27th, 1543, by John Dudley, Lord Lisle, who subsequently became Earl of Warwick and then Duke of Northumberland, and who was the father-in-law of Lady Jane Grey.
The year 1544 found Henry VIII. again in alliance with the emperor, and again at war with France and Scotland. Lisle, with a considerable fleet, picked up at the mouth of the Tyne a convoy of two hundred transports laden with troops under the Earl of Hereford, and escorted them to the Forth, where the army was landed near Leith on May 5th. Edinburgh was taken and sacked, but the castle held out so stoutly that the English withdrew, and the fleet returned to the south ravaging and plundering the Scots coasts on its way. Later in the year the Earl of Lennox, father of Lord Darnley, who had temporarily joined the English party, manifested his zeal by heading a squadron of twelve or fourteen ships, with which he harassed Arran, Bute and Argyll. He brought back much spoil to Bristol, and then made a second raid with a smaller force.
More important operations were undertaken in France. Henry in person landed at Calais on July 14th, and took the field with an army of thirty thousand men. He laid siege to Boulogne, Lord Lisle at the same time blockading it by sea; and on September 14th the place surrendered.
Sir Thomas Seymour, afterwards Lord Seymour of Sudeley, was appointed vice-admiral, and directed on October 29th, 1544, to take command of a fleet for the conveyance of a quantity of stores to the ​newly captured fortress, and, after having accomplished that service, to lie in mid-Channel, and, "if opportunity may serve thereunto, appoint a convenient number of the small shallops and other small vessels to pass in the River Estaples" (the Canche) "and there burn and bring away such vessels of the enemy as may be there found, or do other such annoyance to the enemy as the time will serve." If the ships in the Canche could not be attacked, other annoyance might be caused on the coasts of Normandy. Finally, after leaving a certain number of ships to cruise in the Channel, Seymour was to return to Portsmouth for more supplies for Boulogne.
Seymour proceeded at once, and on November 6th wrote from off Dover to the Privy Council that he had quitted the mouth of the Orwell in a fog; that he had learnt of seventeen men-of-war being at Etaples; that the place was difficult to approach, and more difficult to get out of; and that he begged to be allowed to operate instead upon the coasts of Brittany.
Permission to attack Brittany was given, provided Boulogne was first attended to, and fourteen ships were left to guard the Narrow Seas; but, in the meanwhile, Seymour was driven from Dover by a gale. He tried to make Boulogne, but was carried too far to the westward; and then, hearing that seventeen sail of the enemy lay in Dieppe, and seventeen more in the Seine, determined to attack them. But the gale veered to E.S.E., and he was obliged to abandon his design. With much difficulty, and with the loss of all his boats, he reached the shelter of the Isle of Wight.
Henry wrote angrily to Seymour on November 13th; but the sailor returned a straightforward explanation, and the king was satisfied. The supplies, however, did not go to Boulogne that winter.
This loss of the valuable fortress spurred France to great exertions. Francis I. concentrated his whole available western fleet on the coasts of Normandy under Claude d'Annebaut, Baron de Retz and Admiral of France, and reinforced it in 1545 with ​twenty-five galleys from the Mediterranean under Polain, Baron de la Garde, and Strozzi, Prior of Capua. Second in command under D'Annebaut was Vice-Admiral de Moüy de la Meilleraye. Polain's own galley was the largest and strongest built up to that time, and was remarkable as having five slaves to each oar. Previous galleys had never had more than four. This combined fleet was directed to take station so as to prevent English supplies from being thrown into Boulogne, which Francis purposed to besiege by land.
In the meantime, English cruisers and privateers captured many richly laden vessels; and wine and fish became drugs in the markets of London. Holinshed, quoting Stowe, also mentions that the English fleet under Lord Lisle looked into the mouth of the Seine where the French fleet lay, and exchanged some shot with it, so inducing the galleys to come out; but that, it beginning to blow, both parties drew off, the galleys because they made very bad weather of it, and Lord Lisle because he had not sufficient sea room among the shoals. The latter returned to Portsmouth.
D'Annebaut, while waiting for Polain, had collected from between Montreuil and Bayonne all the merchantmen and privateers which he could lay hands upon, and had got together an enormous fleet, which, when Lord Lisle saw it in June, numbered two hundred sail without the galleys. Du Bellay says that when it sailed it consisted of one hundred and fifty large ships, fifty vessels of smaller burden, and twenty-five galleys; and although some modern French writers admit only forty-eight ships, fifty smaller craft, and twenty-five galleys, they do not appear to be able to give any good authority for their figures. Francis, not being yet ready to begin the siege of Boulogne, ordered this large force to attack Portsmouth. The English fleet at anchor at or off Portsmouth included only sixty sail, apart from small craft.
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A GALLEY. (From Joseph Furtenbach's 'Architectura Navalis.' Ulm, 1695.)
Arrived off the Isle of Wight on July 18th, D'Annebaut sent Polain with four galleys to reconnoitre the situation of the English fleet which still lay within, and which had for the time completely surrendered the command of the sea. Fourteen English vessels weighed with a very light land wind, and stood out of harbour as if to cut off the galleys, which fell back upon the advancing body of the French. Thereupon, the rest of the English ships weighed and went slowly out; and an interchange of shot at long range ensued, no particular damage however being done on either side. The English manœuvred to draw the enemy among the shallows on the Spit Sand and under the guns of the defences of the town; but D'Annebaut was too wary to be thus caught, and, as night came on, retired to St. Helen's Road, where he found that his largest ship, the Maitresse, was making so much water that he had to send her back to Le Hâvre to be docked.
During the night D'Annebaut rearranged his order of battle, dividing bis larger ships into three squadrons, with himself in command of thirty vessels in the centre; De Boutières with thirty-six vessels on the right, and Baron de Curton with thirty-six vessels on the left. The galleys under Polain were ordered to approach the English in the morning, and attempt to induce them, by firing at them, to follow the French to sea. But it would seem that these orders were not carried out very early.
On the 19th, King Henry was with Lord Lisle in the Henry Grace à Dieu when the first movement of the enemy was noticed, and he at once ordered an attack and went ashore. In moving out the Mary Rose, of 500 tons, being very low in the water, heeled so much when her helm was put hard over, that the sills of her open lower ports, only 16 inches out of the water ere she heeled at all, were submerged. She rapidly filled and sank, carrying down with ​her her captain, Sir George Carew, and all hands, except about thirty-five persons. This awful catastrophe was witnessed from the shore, not only by the king, but also by Lady Carew, the wife of the gallant and unhappy commander.
French historians are almost unanimous in asserting that the Mary Rose was sunk in action, some, as Du Bellay, attributing the result to gun-shot, and others, as Guérin and other modern writers, claiming the ship as the victim of the galleys of Polain. There is not a shadow of doubt that she perished as has been related, before she had an opportunity of getting into action.
The wind was too light to enable the English ships to manœuvre properly; and, as the French galleys did not depend upon wind, they were able to inflict a certain amount of annoyance, especially upon the Henry Grace à Dieu. But the armed boats of the fleet and the row-barges made a good fight with the enemy until, late in the day, the wind freshened. The galleys were then driven off, and, had not D'Annebaut moved to their assistance, would have suffered heavily. No serious effort, however, was made to engage the main force of the French; and once more the English spent a night among the shoals.
On July 20th, the French landed men at three separate places in the Isle of Wight and plundered some villages, but were easily driven off. Soon afterwards the whole fleet withdrew, coasting as far as Dover, landing at Brighton and Newhaven, but being repulsed there; and then crossing to Boulogne, near which place D'Annebaut put ashore four thousand soldiers and three thousand workmen to assist in the long-deferred siege.
An easterly wind presently drove D'Annebaut from off Boulogne, and obliged him to anchor near the English coast, probably somewhere off the Sussex shore. By that time Lord Lisle, his fleet reinforced to one hundred sail, was cruising in the Channel, and, on August 15th, sighted the enemy to leeward. D'Annebaut had
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THE ENCAMPMENT OF THE ENGLISH FORCES NEAR PORTSMOUTH, JULY 19th, 1545. Showing the Commencement of the Action with the French Fleet. (From the Engraving after the Contemporary Painting formerly at Cowdry, Sussex.)
The indignities thus put upon England were in part revenged by Lisle, who, crossing to the coast of Normandy, landed 6000 men near Tréport on September 2nd, defeated the French forces opposed to him, burnt the town, the abbey, and thirty ships in harbour, losing only fourteen men, and went back unmolested to Spithead.
All this time the plague was raging to a terrible extent in Lisle's fleet. The number of men who returned from Tréport was 12,000. This was about the 4th or 5th of September. Some were subsequently discharged, but it is clear from the tone of a letter written on September 11th by Lisle, Seymour, and Lord St. John (who reported that thirteen out of thirty-four ships were then infected) that the disease was very virulent; and musters taken on the 12th showed that only 8488 men remained fit for duty. This number was on that day further reduced by discharges to 6445, a number far too small for the exigencies of the service, even on the brink of winter, for as Lisle and St. John lamented, "the men fall daylie sick."
The discharges, however, were very necessary. Russell, writing to the Council from Exeter on August 22nd, when the fleet was still fully manned, said, alluding to the Devon and Dorset fishermen, "Many of them, or the most part, are taken from hence as mariners to serve the king, and all the coast here (is) so barren of them that ​there is no fish almost to be gotten here for money; but that such as we have, the women of the fisher towns, eight or nine of them, with but one boy or one man with them, bring it in, adventuring to sail sixteen or twenty miles into the sea afishing; and have been sometimes chased home by the Frenchmen. And I myself, being upon occasion on the coast, have seen the fisher boats brought in with women which I think hath not been seen (before)."
In 1546, the French renewed their attempts on Boulogne, and, in order to sever the communications by land with Calais, tried to seize Ambleteuse. But they were disappointed by the vigilance of Lord Lisle and the Earl of Hertford; and a force of nine thousand troops encamped near it for its protection. In the spring there were several naval skirmishes off the place; and in one of these, which occurred on May 18th, eight English men-of-war engaged an equal number of French vessels, and took a galley with one hundred and eighty soldiers and one hundred and forty rowers; but the operations were of no great importance, and they were put an end to by the conclusion of peace on June 7th. In the following year D'Annebaut, Baron de Retz, came over with a large suite and with twelve galleys, to pay a state visit to England. He landed under a salute at Tower Wharf, and, proceeding to the king at Hampton Court on August 24th, solemnly swore in the name of his sovereign to perform the articles of peace.
This was the last naval event of the reign. On January 28th, 1547, Henry VIII. died, leaving the crown to his son Edward VI., who was then little more than nine years of age. On February 17th, Sir Thomas Seymour, who was brother of Edward, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector, and who seems to have been already on excellent terms with the Queen Dowager, Katherine Parr, whom he married a few weeks later, was created Lord Seymour of Sudeley and Lord High Admiral.
Henry VIII. in his last years had cherished a project for the marriage of his son Prince Edward with the Princess Mary, daughter of. James V. of Scotland; and he had succeeded in inducing the Scots Government to enter into an agreement that the marriage should take place. After Edward's accession, the plan was as warmly taken up by the Lord Protector; but the idea of the ​union was unpopular in Scotland, and was especially offensive to France, which, as a Catholic power, strongly objected to see a Catholic princess of a house long friendly with France allied to a Protestant prince of a house which was France's traditional enemy. The Lord Protector determined to endeavour to force Scotland to observe its undertaking. On the other hand, France determined to endeavour to secure the princess for the Dauphin, and dispatched Leo Strozzi, general of the galleys of France, with a force which on July 3rd, 1547, seized St. Andrews, in Fifeshire, and there captured the leading Scots Protestants who were partisans of the English match.
Before England could strike any forcible blow there were several border skirmishes and small encounters at sea. In one of the latter, if Hayward may be credited, an English man-of-war called the Pensée was attacked by a Scots ship called the Lion, which, although of superior force, she took. But the prize, with most of her men, was lost off Harwich as she was being brought south.
There was no unnecessary delay in England. A fleet of sixty-five sail, including thirty-four large ships and one galley, was placed under the command of Admiral Edward, Lord Clinton, and Vice-Admiral Sir William Woodhouse, and a large army under Somerset in person marched northward. On September 10th, the Scots were defeated with enormous slaughter at Pinkie Cleuch, near Musselburgh, the fleet co-operating with great effect on the Scots flank; and Leith was taken immediately afterwards and Edinburgh plundered. But in spite of this decisive English triumph, and of the damage done along the coast by the fleet, which burnt many towns, and practically annihilated the little Scots fleet, the Scots were more than ever determined to oppose the English marriage, and more than ever inclined to further a French one. France reciprocated in 1548 by sending to Scotland six thousand men under André de Montalembert, Baron d'Essé, ​and by carrying into practice a cleverly laid scheme for the transport of Mary Stuart, the subject of the dispute, from Scotland to Brittany.
Villegagnon, Vice-Admiral of Brittany, commanded the squadron which conveyed the expeditionary corps to Scotland. He landed the troops at Dunbar on June 18th, and they proceeded to lay siege to Haddington, while he, announcing his intention of returning to France, put to sea. But as soon as he was out of sight of the shore, he steered north instead of south, and passing between the Orkneys and the Shetlands, rounded Scotland, and so reached Dumbarton, where, by arrangement, Mary Stuart awaited him. Sailing again without unnecessary delay, he entered the Channel by way of the Irish Sea, and safely landed his charge in Brittany on July 13th, 1548.
A month afterwards, a squadron under the Lord High Admiral, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, was sent to the eastern coast of Scotland to cause a diversion. Seymour landed a force at St. Ninian's, in Fifeshire; but it was met by James Stuart, later known as the Regent Murray, and driven back to its ships with a loss of six hundred killed and about one hundred taken. Seymour made an attempt upon Montrose, but he fell into an ambush organised by Erskine of Dun, and losing six hundred men was obliged to retreat. Although in the course of his cruise he destroyed a few vessels, he returned to England with little gain and no glory.
Peace nominally continued with France; but in July, 1548, the French off Boulogne fired on people who were engaged in building a mole there, and subsequently they captured three or four English victuallers, and made incursions within the English pale. Remonstrance was in vain, and at length the Council decided to permit the people of the western ports secretly to proceed to sea to intercept the home-coming French fishery fleet from Newfoundland, and to entrust the conduct of this strange privateering expedition to Seymour, Sir Peter Carew, and other officers of rank. But the political events preceding the fall and execution of the Lord High ​Admiral hindered the carrying out of the design. Seymour was deprived of his office in January, 1549, and was beheaded on March 20th.
Open war with France was resumed in 1549. Henry II. attacked Boulogne; and Leo Strozzi, with twelve galleys convoying transports with two thousand troops, blockaded Jersey and Guernsey. It was then that Captain William Wynter, who, under Elizabeth, showed himself to be a commander of unusual ability, first began to build up his reputation, although he had served as early as 1544 during the operations in the Firth of Forth. Entrusted with a small squadron and eight hundred soldiers, he, in spite of his inferior force, so boldly attacked Strozzi that he took or burnt all his galleys, killed a thousand of his men, and drove the rest of the expedition ignominiously back to France. It is but just to add that the French histories contain no mention of this affair. They do, however, assert that on August 1st, 1549, Strozzi off Boulogne gained a brilliant victory over an English fleet, and drove the shattered remnant of it to Guernsey; and this action is not mentioned by English writers. The evidence as to Wynter's victory is, nevertheless, too strong to be neglected; while the evidence as to the French success is exceedingly and even suspiciously weak. There is less doubt as to the successes of the French on land. They pressed Boulogne severely, cutting off all communication with it save by sea; and by the treaty of March 14th, 1550, they were given possession of it and its dependencies upon payment of 400,000 crowns.
Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who, since October 28th, 1549, had held the office of Lord High Admiral for the second time, relinquished it on May 4th, 1550, to Edward, Lord Clinton, who had been governor of the beleaguered fortress, and who had negotiated the treaty.
The peace between England and France was very displeasing to the emperor, who, in consequence, allowed and probably encouraged his Flamand subjects to cruise against the French in the English seas in a manner destructive to all security of commerce and intercommunication. The French naturally retaliated, the result being ​that the Narrow Seas became the scene of all sorts of piratical irregularities. The English Government did its best to stop these proceedings, and to protect the merchants, whose interests were seriously prejudiced. A squadron of six ships with four pinnaces and a brigantine was sent on a preventive cruise in July, 1551; and the brigantine in question, or another craft of the same type, was dispatched to Dieppe to warn the French against the Flamands in the Channel. It is noteworthy as showing the respect with which the English naval power was then treated, that when this brigantine in her course encountered some Flamand vessels, they lowered their topsails to her. Yet the Flamands were not invariably so subservient. In February, 1552, a Flamand ship had the temerity to attempt to search the Falcon — probably the English pinnace of that name — for Frenchmen, whereupon the Falcon boarded and took her.
In 1551 there occurred the earliest recorded English voyage to Guinea. It was made by Thomas Windham, who, in the following year, repeated it, and opened a remunerative trade. In 1553 he made a third voyage, with three ships, but perished on the coast.
On March 1st, of 1552, four barks and two pinnaces were sent to reinforce the cruisers policing the Channels, and on March 26th Sir Henry Dudley, with four ships and two barks, was sent to sea with directions to protect the trade. He captured two pirates and carried them into Dover; but he appears upon the whole to have performed his task but indifferently, for the lawless proceedings continued, and those of the French, which in a space of twenty months cost English merchants a loss of £50,000, became so insufferable that very sharp remonstrances were addressed to the court of France. These led to strained relations, and a rupture appeared to be imminent when, on July 6th, 1553, Edward VI. died.
Mary, who in spite of the opposition of the partisans of the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey, succeeded her brother, owed her elevation, in a large measure, to the attitude of the navy. The Duke of Northumberland, on behalf of Lady Jane, sent a squadron of six ships, immediately after the king's death, to blockade Yarmouth with a view to preventing Mary, who was in the eastern counties, from leaving the country. But it happened that forces for Mary's support were at that moment being levied in the town, ​where the princess's interest was strong. Sir Henry Jernegan, one of the officers engaged in this levy, had the courage to put off to the squadron in an open boat, and the ability to persuade the whole command to declare for Queen Mary. At about the same time the Warden of the Cinque Ports took the same course, and the result of these and other pronouncements was that opposition ceased before blood had been shed, and that Mary mounted the throne peaceably. In the following year, on March 26th, she appointed William, first Lord Howard of Effingham, to be Lord High Admiral.
In the meantime, Captain William Wynter had been sent with a squadron to Ostend to bring to England the ambassadors of the Emperor Charles V., who were charged to negotiate the preliminaries of a marriage between his son, Philip of Spain, and the new queen. The emperor on this occasion sent Wynter a chain of gold, which upon his return to England the honest seaman showed to Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, who exclaimed: "For this gold chain you have sold your country." Such indeed was the unpopularity of the proposed match that Sir Thomas Wyatt's abortive rebellion was the instant outcome of the arrival of the ambassadors. But nothing sufficed to stay the execution of the project, and in the summer of 1554, Philip with an imposing fleet of one hundred and sixty sail set out for England.
Effingham, with twenty-eight ships, had ere this begun to cruise in the Channel, nominally to guard the trade, but really to welcome the arrival of the future King Consort. He welcomed it in strange fashion. Philip came up Channel with the Spanish flag at his main, and when he sighted Effingham's squadron, proudly kept the flag flying in expectation that Effingham would salute it. The Lord High Admiral did salute, but it was with a shotted gun. It did not seem fitting to him that any foreigner, no matter his rank and pretentions, should enter the seas of the Queen of England without paying the accustomed deference to her rights there. The shot caused Philip to strike his colours and lower his topsails, the marriage being too important a part of his plans to permit of his then disputing the English claims; and the gallant Effingham at ​once returned the salute in the usual friendly way. Hervey calls this "a noble instance of spirit which well deserves to be commemorated." Campbell considers it "a circumstance worthy of immortal remembrance, and one would think too of imitation."
Philip landed at Southampton on July 19th, and the marriage took place at Winchester on the 25th of the same month. On August 12th, the royal pair made their public entry into London, amid the barely repressed disgust of the greater part of the nation.
Philip remained in England only until September, 1555, and did not revisit the country, save for a short period in 1557; yet he was not without influence upon its policy; and his accession to the throne of Spain, upon the abdication of his father in January, 1556, enabled him to involve England in disastrous wars with France and Scotland. Nor, in all probability, was he entirely irresponsible for the supercession, on February 10th, 1557, as Lord High Admiral, of Howard of Effingham by Edward, Lord Clinton; although, no doubt, Howard's devotion to the Princess Elizabeth was the ostensible reason why the change was made.
The French campaign opened well. William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, with seven or eight thousand men, and in co-operation with Spanish troops, contributed to the victory of St. Quentin, in Picardy, on July 7th, 1557; but there was soon a great misfortune to be set off against this somewhat useless success. On January 1st, 1558, Francis, Duke of Guise, suddenly appeared at the Bridge of Nieullay, close to Calais, and surprised the defences there. Next day, D'Andelot de Coligny seized Fort Risban on the sea front; and on the 5th, the citadel was carried by assault. On the 7th, Lord Wentworth, the governor, who had but five hundred men at his disposal, capitulated; and so, after upwards of two hundred years of English occupation, this important strong place was lost, owing to the culpable indifference of the English Government, which, although it was war time, had failed to provide it with necessary men and supplies. On January 20th, Earl Grey de Wilton had to surrender Guines; and presently there remained to England not a single foot of her once splendid dominions in France.
​Thirty years later, had England still held Calais, the Spanish Armada might, in all probability, have been completely destroyed there.
The naval campaigns of 1557 and 1558 were hardly more satisfactory. In the former year a squadron of twelve sail, under Sir John Clere of Ormesby, Vice-Admiral of England, was sent to sea to annoy the Scots, and to protect the home-coming Iceland fleet of fishing vessels. A descent was made by it on the mainland of Orkney on August 12th; but on the day following, an overwhelming force of Scots fell upon the landing party, killed three captains belonging to the squadron, took all Clere's artillery, and drove the survivors to their ships. Clere's boat, as he was being pulled off, was upset, and he was drowned.
In the summer of 1558, Lord Clinton put to sea with a fleet of one hundred and forty sail, reinforced by thirty ships belonging to Philip's Netherlands possessions, with orders to attempt the reduction of Brest. Part of the command seems, however, to have been detached to the northward; for, on July 13th, twelve English ships, chancing to find themselves off Gravelines, where a battle was being fought between Count Egmont and the Marshal de Thermes, were able so to gall the French with their gun-fire as to decide the fight, which resulted in a decisive victory for Egmont.
But the main fleet, under the Lord High Admiral, effected no good. It landed seven thousand men in Brittany, and on July 31st, 1558, took and burnt Le Conquêt. Against Brest, however, it did nothing; and a party of Flamands, who had wandered into the country out of gun-shot of their ships, was cut off by the French.
Queen Mary died on November 17th, 1558.
Queen Elizabeth, who succeeded her sister, was a little more than twenty-five years of age. "There never was, perhaps," as Campbell remarks, "a kingdom in a more distressed condition than England at the accession of this princess. It was engaged in a war abroad for the interest of a foreign prince; at home the people were divided and distracted about their religious and civil concerns. Those of the reformed religion had been lately exposed to the flames, and those of the Roman communion found themselves now in a declining state. On the continent, we had no allies; in this ​very island, the Scots were enemies, and their queen claimed the English crown. The exchequer was exhausted, most of the forts and castles throughout the kingdom were mouldering into ruins; at sea we had lost much of our ancient reputation, and a too sharp sense of their misfortunes had dejected the whole nation to the last degree."
Happily, Elizabeth was a woman of ability, good education, lofty patriotism, high spirit, devotion to her exalted duties, and something more. Her youth had been stormy, and she had often been the unwilling centre of intrigues, which had taught her much concerning both men and women. She never forgot her early lessons, nor did she fail to apply them. They made her independent and self-reliant; and although she was fortunate in having as able advisers and servants as had ever lent aid to an English sovereign, she trusted, throughout her long reign, first of all to herself; and she deserves, in consequence, the first credit for the many glories and triumphs of the Elizabethan age.
The naval affairs of the time are intermixed, more than those of any other period, with affairs not purely naval. During much of the reign, unofficial warfare, not now very easily distinguishable from piracy, was waged by the queen's subjects against foreign powers; and many of the chief leaders in these operations had been, or were to become, officers in the Royal Navy. Again, queen's ships were, on more than one occasion, employed for purposes of private gain, adventure, or discovery, and were wholly or partially fitted out and maintained at private charges. And still, as previously, vessels and seamen of the merchant marine were frequently used for national purposes. Unusual difficulty is, therefore, experienced in drawing a satisfactory line between the naval operations proper of the reign and those operations which were more particularly adventurous, commercial, exploratory, or piratical. It is hoped, however, that assisted by the references in the notes below, the reader will easily find in Chapter XVI. an account of such expeditions as are not here treated of; since it has been deemed most convenient to confine the present chapter mainly to the consideration of the warlike undertakings of the State, and of those naval events which directly affected, or proceeded from, the national policy.
One of Elizabeth's first cares was for the safety of the Narrow Seas. On November 21st, ere she had been queen a week, she ​ordered Malyn, the vice-admiral, to collect as large a fleet as possible for the protection of the trade, and for the prevention of unauthorised persons from entering or leaving the kingdom. So strictly was the service performed that it was presently found necessary to relax the orders, and to explain that the queen had no intention of unduly restraining her subjects in the prosecution of their lawful concerns. Lord Clinton, although he had not been conspicuously successful in his operations during the previous reigns, was confirmed in his office as Lord High Admiral.
On April 2nd, 1559, peace was concluded with France at Cateau Cambrésis. Among the stipulations was one for the restitution of Calais to England at the expiration of eight years, or for the payment then of fifty thousand crowns by way of penalty. Another stipulation was to the effect that the fortresses built and manned by the French upon the Scots border should be evacuated and razed; and it was further agreed that the Dauphin, later Francis II., and the Dauphiness, Mary of Scots, should confirm the treaty and recognise the right of Elizabeth to the crown of England.
But nothing came of these arrangements. Religious considerations had induced Elizabeth, as early as February 27th, 1559, to take the Protestant party in Scotland under her protection; and similar considerations induced France to strain every nerve to assist the Roman Catholic party there. Nor would the Dauphin and Dauphiness confirm the treaty. And when the Dauphin, in July, 1559, by the death of his father, was elevated to the throne of France, and, in the character of King of Scotland also, sent large forces thither, open war naturally recommenced.
Early in 1560, Elizabeth concluded the Treaty of Berwick with the Scots Lords of the Congregation, promising to assist them in the expulsion of the French; and, immediately afterwards, she dispatched to the north an army under Earl Grey de Wilton, a fleet under Wynter having already sailed for the Firth of Forth. Wynter attacked the French ships in the roadstead, and took or destroyed them. He then rigidly blockaded Leith; and, had the army of Grey and the Confederates been as active as the navy was, the place would probably have fallen. Wynter had not only to co-operate with the besiegers, but also to guard against the daily ​expected arrival from France of a relieving fleet under the Marquis d'Elbeuf. This fleet, however, was dispersed by a storm, and obliged to return to France; and Francis II., realising the difficulty of conducting operations at so great a distance from his bases, and the probability that, in spite of all his efforts, Leith would fall sooner or later, came to terms.
The Treaty of Edinburgh, signed on July 6th, 1560, procured the evacuation of Scotland by French troops, the razing of the fortifications of Leith and Dunbar, and the payment of a fine for Mary's blazoning of the arms of England with those of Scotland and France.
Mary declined to be a party to this arrangement; but as her husband, Francis II., died on December 5th, 1560, and as France was thenceforward less intimately concerned with the affairs of Scotland, Mary's refusal gained her nothing. Indeed, a full and frank concession of the English demands in 1560 might have spared her the long tragedy which ended at Fotheringay in 1587. Mary returned to Scotland from France in August, 1561. An English squadron, then at sea, is generally supposed to have received orders to intercept her, in order that she might be detained in England until she should ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh; but she was not sighted by it, and she landed without any interference.
It was ever part of Elizabeth's policy to encourage and support the Protestant party on the continent. After the accession of Charles IX. to the throne of France, the long growing tension between the Protestants and Catholics in France reached breaking point; and in 1562, as a consequence of the massacre of Vassy, religious war broke out there. As the chief strength of the Protestants lay along the north-west coasts of the country, the civil war extended to the Channel, whither each party dispatched numerous privateers. Most of these vessels confused piracy with their privateering, and the trade of neutrals suffered so intolerably that Elizabeth found no difficulty in discovering a pretext for lending material support to the Huguenots. They had long begged for her assistance, and had offered to put the port of Le Hâvre into her hands. In 1562, therefore, she accepted the offer, and in ​October sent over Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, with a squadron conveying a considerable body of troops, to occupy the place.
France at once declared all English ships good prize, so long as Elizabeth held Le Hâvre. The queen replied by declaring all French ships good prize also. In this informal war the English privateers made immense gains at sea. One Francis Clarke, for example, by means of three vessels which he had fitted out, captured no fewer than eighteen ships, valued at £50,000, within three weeks. But the English privateers, like the French ones, soon developed piratical tendencies; it became necessary to restrain their operations by proclamation, and an embassy was sent to France to excuse their practices. Sir William Woodhouse, with a small squadron, composed of the Lion, Hope, Hart, Swallow, and Hare, was sent to sea to repress piracy, and at the same time to render such aid as might be possible to the Huguenots; and he seems to have cruised with success, lying at intervals at Portsmouth, during the winter.
But Elizabeth was soon deserted by her protégés. On March 12th, 1563, the French Protestant and Catholic leaders concluded peace at Amboise; and, as the English continued to hold Le Hâvre, formal war between France and England was declared on July 7th, and the re-united parties combined to press with equal energy the siege of the town, under the direction of the Constable Anne de Montmorenci. Warwick held out until the 28th, a fleet of sixty sail, sent to succour him, arriving only in time to carry off his forces. The campaign was put an end to on April 11th, 1564, by the Treaty of Troyes. In virtue of this, the French queen-mother agreed to pay 120,000 crowns to England; free trade between the two countries was conceded; and French hostages in English hands were released.
Late in 1566, a little trading expedition, under George Fenner, ​consisting of three ships and a pinnace, left Plymouth for Guinea and Cape Verde. In May following, off Terceira, one of the English vessels was treacherously attacked by seven Portuguese craft, nearly all of which were of superior force. She gallantly resisted them for two entire days, and finally beat them all off.
A new religious war broke out in France in 1667; and once more, in spite of the treatment which she had previously received from them, Elizabeth rendered assistance to the Protestants, sending them 100,000 crowns in gold and a park of artillery. She also showed favour to the persecuted Protestants of the Spanish Netherlands. Her attitude was even more resented by Spain than by France; and soon other difficulties arose to intensify the ill-feeling which had been sown early in the reign by Elizabeth's refusal to listen to the matrimonial advances of her brother-in-law, Philip.
Early in 1568, some Genoese merchants, purposing to establish a bank in the Netherlands, obtained from King Philip a licence to transport thither in Spanish bottoms a large sum in specie. As the vessels entered the Channel, they were chased by some French privateers into Plymouth, Falmouth, and Southampton, where they were well received. At the request of the Spanish ambassador, the specie was carried ashore. But in the meantime, the queen was informed that the Duke of Alva, who was Governor of the Netherlands, intended to seize the money on its arrival, and to use it to the prejudice of the Protestants. She therefore impounded it, promising, however, to return it with interest to the Genoese, should it prove to be indeed intended for their legitimate business, or to hand it over to the King of Spain, should he make good a claim to it. The real object of the somewhat high-handed proceedings appears to have been to prevent Alva from getting improper possession of the treasure. Both Alva and Philip strongly resented the act. Philip attempted to tamper with certain English statesmen, and to stir up a rebellion in Ireland; and Alva laid hands on all English property in Flanders and granted letters of marque and reprisals. Elizabeth thereupon permitted reprisals also; but, as before, the privateers soon developed piratical tendencies, and ​had to be repressed by proclamation. The matter was presently compromised, but it did not fail to leave much bad blood on both sides. Nevertheless, when in 1570 Philip was about to marry his niece, the Archduchess Anne of Austria, Elizabeth very politely sent a sqadron under Charles Howard, afterwards Lord Howard of Effingham, to honourably escort the princess from Zeeland to Spain.
In 1572, there was a new treaty with France; yet Elizabeth was unable to regard the proceedings of her nearest continental neighbour without the gravest anxiety and suspicion. The massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day served to increase her misgivings; and, as a fourth religious war, which centred about La Roehelle, had broken out, the sympathies of most Englishmen were in an excited condition, which, even taken alone, was a source of difficulty and of danger to peace. Nor was the Protestant struggle going on only in France. The Prince of Orange had entered the Netherlands at the head of an army recruited in Germany.
Elizabeth was as desirous of avoiding formal war as she was of befriending the Protestant cause. She dispatched help to the Prince of Orange, under Thomas Morgan and Sir Humphrey Gilbert; and, at first less openly, she assisted the Protestants of La Rochelle. The celebrated Captain Polain blockaded that port; but he had only five galleys and three ships, besides small craft; and the success of one of the Protestant commanders named Miran, in running the blockade and throwing provisions into the town, seems to have encouraged Gabriel de Montgomeri, a Protestant leader who was at the time a refugee in England, to attempt an enterprise of a similar kind on a larger scale. He fitted out a fleet of fifty-three vessels, not, of course, without the more or less active co-operation of the English Government; and he had as his second in command Jacques Sore, the best naval commander that Protestant France had then produced. Yet, in spite of these advantages, when, in April, 1573, he appeared off the beleaguered town, he effected nothing; nor, although he persisted in his efforts, did he succeed in breaking down Polain's guard before the conclusion of the arrangement in virtue of which the siege was raised on June 25th.
When the French ambassador in London complained of this ​expedition having been suffered to leave the shores of England, and of English merchants having supplied the besieged with provisions, the queen was able to disown personal knowledge of Montgomeri's design. Concerning the other allegation, she very aptly said that merchants were men who followed their gain, wheresoever they hoped to find it; and that since they, being Protestants, were in danger of being butchered in every other port of France, it was no wonder that they carried their goods where they might hope to vend them in safety.
A fifth war of religions raged in France from 1574 to 1576. As usual, Elizabeth, while countenancing the Huguenots, endeavoured to keep on terms of peace with France; and, at the height of the struggle, she sent the Earl of Worcester on a complimentary mission to the French Court. The Protestants of La Rochelle had, as on previous occasions of the kind, taken advantage of the civil strife to fit out privateers, which eventually began to commit piratical acts against vessels of all nations. Some of these cruisers were so rash as to seize a vessel containing part of the Earl's baggage, and in the affray they killed three or four people. This was more than the queen could suffer, even from her protégés. The Lord High Admiral, who, in 1572 had been created Earl of Lincoln, was instructed to clear the Narrow Seas of all freebooters, Protestant or Catholic. He appointed the Controller of the Navy, William Holstock, as his vice-admiral, and entrusted him with the command of three fast vessels, having three hundred and sixty men on board. With these, in about six weeks, Mr. Holstock took twenty privateers, with nine hundred men, and retook fifteen merchantmen. The prizes were sent into Sandwich, Dover, and Portsmouth; and in one of them were found three of the persons who had been concerned in the plundering of the Earl of Worcester's baggage. These, after trial, were hanged as pirates.
In 1575, the Prince of Orange and the States General of the Netherlands offered Elizabeth the possession, or, if not, the protectorate of Holland and Zeeland. The queen graciously declined the offer, but promised, if possible, to use her influence with Spain to procure peace for the United Provinces. Had she accepted ​the responsibility, she would probably have experienced great trouble in controlling her new subjects; for in the following year, 1576, the privateers of Holland and Zeeland, under the pretence that English merchants had been assisting Dunquerque, Spain and Antwerp, did so much damage to English shipping that the repressive services of Mr. Holstock had to be again called for. He proceeded to sea with a small squadron and captured a number of Dutch seamen, two hundred of whom he sent to English prisons. The queen, moreover, sent Sir William Wynter and Mr. Robert Beal, Clerk of the Council, to Zeeland to endeavour to obtain restitution of wrongfully captured goods; but in this they were not successful.
Elizabeth, nevertheless, did not cease to show numerous kindnesses to the continental Protestants, and especially to those of them who took refuge in England. This policy of hers had the incidental effect of drawing into her realm many excellent artificers and workpeople, whose advent greatly benefited the trade and manufactures of the country and correspondingly weakened those of the places whence they came. Spain deeply resented the injury thus done to her Netherlands dominions; and signs are not wanting that, as early as 1580 or before, the more far-seeing of English statesmen realised that Spain's enmity was of a kind which would not exhaust itself in vapourings, nor indeed in hostile action of the ordinary kind. It was perceived that sooner or later there must come a moment when the great champions of Catholicism and of Protestantism, antagonised not only by differences of religion and by trade rivalry, but also by the savage piratical warfare that had long unofficially subsisted between them in the New World, would stake their all, the one for dominion, and the other for liberty and existence.
Yet probably it was not then understood, and assuredly it has not always been since comprehended, how much depended upon the result of the struggle. It was not merely that Spain and England were pitting themselves one against the other; it was not merely that Catholicism challenged Protestantism; it was not merely that the Latin race threatened the Anglo-Saxon one. ​Viewed from the present, the long growing and carefully nourished hatreds, which settled their disputes in the English Channel in 1588, were mainly important to the world at large because, indirectly, they involved the fate of America. Had Spain, and not England, been victorious, the American continent might still have developed into a congeries of republican states; but we may be sure that the prevailing republicanism of those states would have been rather of the central than of the northern American type, and we may well doubt whether a republican union, such as was founded under Washington, and kept together under Lincoln, would have been ever possible in the New World.
Before publicly putting forth her whole strength against England, Spain more than once tried to injure her enemy by surreptitious blows. In 1580, for example, Munster was in the throes of civil war, and the opportunity seemed a good one for dispatching from Corunna a little expedition to foment the rebellion against the English power. Italians as well as Spaniards took part in it. They landed at Smerwick, in Dingle Bay, in September; but Arthur, Earl Grey de Wilton, who, as Lord-Lieutenant, had gone to Ireland earlier in the same year with a large body of picked troops, speedily made himself master of a fort which had been built on the coast in the previous year by James Fitzmaurice and a feeble Papal force, and which was occupied by the new invaders, hardly one of whom escaped to tell the story. In his preface to Vol. XII. of the new series of Acts of the Privy Council of England, Mr. J. R. Dasent notes a curious coincidence in connection with this abortive invasion.
​On the death of Edward, Earl of Lincoln, in 1585, the office of Lord High Admiral was conferred, on July 8th, upon Charles, Lord Howard of Effingham, K.G.
After Elizabeth's refusal to become either sovereign or protector of Holland and Zeeland, the United Provinces had made a similar offer to, and had received a similar refusal from, Henry III. of France. In 1585, being hard pressed by Spain, they renewed the offer of the sovereignty to Elizabeth. The queen declined once more; but this time she agreed to furnish them with five thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry, upon condition that after the conclusion of an advantageous peace, the States should pay the cost, and that, in the meantime, as security for the payment, Flushing and Rammekins in Zeeland, and Brielle in Holland should be delivered to her. She also agreed to take the United Provinces under her protection, and she stipulated that if she should see fit to send a fleet to sea, the States should contribute an equal number of ships, to be placed under the command of an English admiral.
These measures and the increasing boldness of the English in the West Indies might well have provoked Spain to an immediate plunge into active war, but that slow-moving power was not yet ready to deal the great blow which she had in contemplation. She only redoubled her enormous preparations and the strength of her determination. Indeed, England risked much by the Netherlands alliance. And she risked scarcely less by the attitude which she adopted in the same year towards the Huguenots of France. Henri de Condé came as a suppliant to Elizabeth's court. She received him well, gave him 50,000 crowns in money, and lent him ten ships, with which he was able to contribute to the relief of La Rochelle, where Henry of Navarre was besieged. Happily for England, the Spanish cause in the Netherlands was already a lost one, and the star of Henry of Navarre in France was in the ascendant; so that Elizabeth, in both instances, ranged herself with the winning side. But Spain was still strong at sea — the strongest Power in the world. It had already been determined to launch the whole sea power of Spain, of Spain's Italian dependencies, and of Portugal, all under Philip's direction, against the island kingdom. It was now determined to launch it with as little delay as possible.
​The nature of Spanish feeling and policy was shown in the case of the Primrose, 150 tons, of London, Foster, master. On May 26th, 1585, the ship, a trader, lay off Bilbao, and was visited by seven Spaniards, including the corregidor, or chief magistrate, of the province. After these people had been hospitably entertained, four of them, including the corregidor, returned to the shore. Presently a boat containing seventy people, with another containing four-and-twenty, was observed approaching the vessel. The people looked like merchants. They betrayed a desire to go on board; but Foster, being suspicious, and having only twenty-seven men with him, refused to admit more than the corregidor, who was of the party, and three or four others; and he made the rest promise to remain in their boats. But, instead of doing so, they all, in a short time produced hidden arms and boarded, the corregidor summoning Foster to yield and causing him to be seized. The men, however, determined to rescue their captain, and, attacking gallantly, killed many of the enemy and drove the rest overboard. Four of them, who were wounded and drowning, were taken up again, one being the corregidor; and they were carried prisoners to England. Asked for explanations of his treacherous conduct, the official produced a commission from the King of Spain for a general embargo upon all English, Netherlands, and German shipping along the coast. Thenceforward, the two countries were in a state of war, although, for a time, Spain still postponed her grand stroke.
Another case was that of the engagement in the Mediterranean, on July 13th, 1586, between some vessels of the Turkey Company and thirteen Spanish craft. Not content with the produce of the embargo which he had laid on ships in his ports, Philip had ordered his galleys in the Levant to take all English ships which they could meet with, the intention being to utilise for the service of the Armada, then preparing, all craft that might be deemed suitable for the purpose. The Turkey Company, in consequence, took care to send only well-built ships to sea; to arm and man them thoroughly; and to oblige several of then to sail in company. Five left England together in November, 1585, the Merchant Royal, the Toby, the Edward Bonaventure, the William and John, and the Susan. Off ​Sicily they separated, each proceeding to her port of destination, and all agreeing to a rendezvous off Zante for the return voyage. When they met again, having learnt that the Spaniards were in search of them, they appointed Edward Williamson, master of the Merchant Royal, as their "admiral" or leader, and undertook to obey him. Off Pantelaria, they sighted eleven galleys and two "frigates" (fast sailing vessels), flying the colours of Sicily and Malta, places then in the pay and service of Spain. The "frigates" were sent forward to order the English captains and pursers to repair on board the Spanish admiral, Don Pedro de Leyva. The captains and pursers, as a body, refused; but sent a supercargo, Mr. Rowet, who was very haughtily received, and informed that the English ships must surrender at discretion. Rowet, in the name of all, declined, and had no sooner returned to his ship than the Spanish admiral fired a shot; whereupon a general engagement began. After five hours' hot fight, the enemy's vessels, some of which appeared to have suffered badly, made off; nor were they pursued; for the English, who had lost only two men, had no wish to hazard their ships.
Reprisals were, long ere this, of course allowed by the English government. Sir William Monson says:
It was in 1586 that George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, one of ​the most distinguished adventurers of an adventurous age, fitted out the first of his numerous privateering expeditions. It consisted of three small ships, the Red Dragon, Bark Clifford, and Roc, and a pinnace, the Dorothy, belonging to Ralegh, the whole being under the command of Robert Widrington. In the Channel, the adventurers rifled some Hamburg ships which were alleged to have Spanish goods on board; on the west coast of Africa they came into what appears to have been unnecessary hostile collision with the negroes; off the Rio de la Plata they captured two Portuguese craft, from one of which they learnt of the taking of John Drake of the Francis, of Fenton's expedition; at Bahia they seized more Portuguese ships; and, after making other prizes, they returned to England, having abandoned their original design of cruising in the Pacific.
In the same year, Ralegh fitted out two little pinnaces, the Serpent and the Mary Sparke, for a cruise to the coast of Spain and the Azores. After having taken several prizes and started on their return to England, they fell in with four-and-twenty Spanish merchantmen, with which they maintained a running fight for thirty-two hours. Ralegh did not himself accompany this expedition.
In pursuance of her promise to the Netherlanders, Elizabeth, at the beginning of 1586, sent the Earl of Leicester to Flushing with a fleet of fifty sail, and, in addition to troops, a body of five hundred gentlemen. Leicester, to the great displeasure of his royal mistress, accepted from the States the title of Governor and Captain-General of Holland, Zeeland, and the United Provinces, and was informed by the queen that although she was ready to relieve her distressed neighbours, she never meant to assume any power over them. The earl, in spite of his considerable force and large powers, did no good, and returned at the end of the year in something very like disgrace.
A more important event of 1586, as bearing upon the prospects of England, around which the thickest clouds were gathering, was the conclusion of a treaty of alliance and "stricter amity" with Scotland. The execution in the following year of James's mother, Mary of Scots, did not disturb this alliance nor prevent King James from co-operating in the preparations against the Spanish Armada.
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ARRIVAL AT FLUSHING OF ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER, 1586. (After the picture by C. Vroom, at Haarlem.)
​Philip's preparations were not ignored in England, nor was there any misapprehension concerning their aims and objects. Walsyngham, always well-informed, had private intelligence from Madrid to the effect that the King of Spain had written to the Pope, advising him of the projected invasion of Elizabeth's dominions, and asking for the Papal blessing upon the undertaking. And not only the intentions of the Spaniards, but also the whereabouts and extent of their ever-growing armaments were matters of common knowledge among English naval officers, who, although there was then not even an embryo Naval Intelligence Department, made up in individual zeal, keenness, observation, and intelligence for what they lacked in corporate organisation.
It was therefore determined, early in 1587, to attempt a blow at the Spaniards while they were still in their ports and busy with their uncompleted preparations; and Sir Francis Drake was chosen to lead a naval expedition for the purpose.
The squadron entrusted to him was not a powerful one. Strype says that it included forty sail: Hakluyt and Monson put the number at only thirty. But nearly all these were hired merchantmen, not to be compared, either force for force, or in general efficiency, with regular war ships. Only four large vessels and two small pinnaces seem to have belonged to the Navy Royal. Drake hoisted his flag in the Elizabeth Bonaventure, of 600 tons, 250 men, and 47 guns. William Borough, a distinguished navigator and hydrographer, but no warrior, either by inclination or experience, was second in command, and sailed in the Lion, or, as she was commonly called, the Golden Lion, of 500 tons, 250 men, and 38 guns. Captain Henry Bellingham commanded the Rainbow, of 500 tons, 250 men, and 54 guns; and Captain Thomas Fenner, a most excellent officer, had command of the Dreadnought, of 400 tons, 190 men, and 32 guns. These ships, and the majority of their officers and men, undoubtedly formed the backbone of the expeditionary force. Borough, however, contributed little to the end in view. The temerity of Drake's projects frightened him and, having been put under arrest, he fled home with his vessel, professing to go in fear of his life. In a rambling letter to Burghley, dated from the White Bear, off Queenborough, on February 21st following, he pleaded that he had received "great discontent" "through Sir Francis Drake's injurious, ungodly, and extreme dealings, which are ​unsupportable," and complained that he had been "openly defamed and causelessly condemned;" but as Drake had sentenced him in contumaciam, and as the formal document which Borough styled "mine answer touching an objection against me for the coming away of the Lion," though enclosed with the letter to Burghley, has not been preserved, it is now impossible to sift all the merits of the case. We know, however, that, thanks to Burghley's good offices, the affair was smoothed over, and that in 1588 Borough commanded the galley Bonavolia against the Armada.
Early in April the squadron sailed from Plymouth. On the 16th, when off the mouth of the Mondego, it fell in with two Middelburg traders, and from them learnt that at Cadiz there were enormous supplies of provisions and ammunition, ready to be sent to Lisbon, where the Armada was collecting. Passing Lisbon, therefore, Drake steered for Cadiz, and arrived off the town on April 19th.
He at once drove in, under shelter of the castle, six galleys which made a show of opposing him, and then, boldly entering the bay, sank or took about a hundred vessels, chiefly laden with stores and ammunition. Most serious among the Spanish losses were a galleon of 1200 tons, belonging to the Marquis of Santa Cruz, and a richly freighted Ragusan merchantman of 1000 tons, mounting 40 brass guns. The whole brilliant operation was performed with insignificant loss in the space of a day and two nights, and the comparative ease with which it was carried to a conclusion cannot have failed to give Drake and his companions an encouraging assurance for the future.
From Cadiz, which he quitted on the 21st, Drake ravaged the coast westward as far as Cape St. Vincent, where he surprised the castle and three neighbouring works. His methods were stern and perhaps a little barbarous. He regarded not only the military forces of Spain, but also Spanish fishermen and their nets, as legitimate objects on which to wreak his vengeance; but he effectually attained the end which he had in view, and most thoroughly intimidated the enemy. So much, indeed, was this the case that when, on arriving off Cascais, at the mouth of the Tagus, he formally invited the Marquis of Santa Cruz to come out and engage him, the distinguished vanquisher of Strozzi neither accepted the challenge nor adopted any measures for stopping his opponent's further depredations. Drake therefore took and plundered or ​burnt about a hundred more ships, besides again harrying the coasts.
Huge quantities of military stores were thus destroyed or taken. But there was small gain of rich stuffs, of spices, and of treasure, and the numerous merchant adventurers who had associated themselves with the fortunes of the expedition naturally looked for some other reward than the spectacle of exploding powder-magazines and burnt accumulations of provisions. It was to satisfy them that, after quitting Cascais, Drake, although his ships were falling short of food and water, headed westward for the Azores. On a day in June, off the island of St. Michael, the English squadron fell in with the great carrack, San Felipe, homeward bound with a rich cargo from the East Indies. Her foes were too many for her, and she was speedily taken. The booty found in her more than delighted the merchants, yet it was perhaps the least valuable part of her lading; for in her cabin were discovered papers which so convincingly drew attention to the enormous profits of the East India trade, and so clearly described the methods by which that trade had been prosecuted by the Spaniards, that the English adventurers, upon returning home, were able to establish a similar trade upon their own account, and, a very few years later, founded the East India Company — probably, upon the whole, the most successful as well as the most gigantic commercial association of which history provides any record.
It has been said that Drake's descent upon Cadiz had the effect of postponing the sailing of the Spanish Armada from 1587 to 1588. This scarcely appears to be true. But, undoubtedly, Drake's operations greatly confused and complicated the difficulties in Philip's way, and rendered the attempt of 1588 not only much more costly, but also far less formidable than it would otherwise have been. The whole expedition was well planned and well carried out; and at that juncture England could hardly have been better served, the enemy more seriously injured, or the adventuring merchants more signally benefited.
The history of the Armada of 1588 is of so much importance, and has to be told in such detail and at so much length, that it has been made the subject of a separate chapter.
​The objects of the Armada were effectually frustrated; but when the immediate danger was overpast, thinking minds began to ask themselves whether, after all, the general policy of national defence would not be furthered rather by attacking the enemy in his own waters, than by merely checking his attacks upon England. The victory over the Armada had been won in English waters, and within sight of the English shores. Should the struggle have been fought out there? Ought it not to have been fought out in Spanish waters, seeing that Queen Elizabeth claimed to be sovereign of the Narrow Seas, and that, granting her claim, her realm had been actually invaded, and that the invasion had been repelled only after it had insulted her territory?
These and similar considerations led to the adoption of a more active policy. The moral value attaching to a vigorously offensive defence obtained recognition; and, while Cumberland, to whom the queen lent the Golden Lion for the purpose, was commissioned to undertake a privateering venture to the South Seas, it was determined to vigorously attack Spain at home, ere she should have time to organise a new offensive expedition.
Philip, as has been seen, had added Portugal to his dominions. The popular candidate for the throne of that country, Dom Antonio, was a refugee in England, and believed that, with a little naval assistance, he could gain a crown. Moreover, Portugal had been the scene of the fitting out of one Armada, and might be the scene of the fitting out of a second, Lisbon being the most convenient Atlantic port in Spanish hands. For more than one reason, therefore, Portugal seemed to be the best point at which to strike.
An expedition was accordingly fitted out in 1589, partly at the queen's expense, but chiefly at the charges of private individuals, among whom Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norreys, with their immediate friends, were the most conspicuous. The States of Holland also co-operated. Some pieces of artillery for land service, a number of horses, several Dutch ships, and a considerable body of men either failed to join the fleet ere it sailed, or failed to get across the Bay of Biscay; so that the expedition was in many respects ill-found, and inadequate for the work in hand. It put to ​sea, however, in April from Plymouth, with eighty, or, as some say, one hundred and forty-six ships, of which six belonged to the Royal Navy, and with eleven thousand soldiers under Sir John Norreys. Dom Antonio was with the fleet, and the Earl of Essex, in some vessels privately fitted out at his own expense for other objects, joined it off the coast of Portugal.
FERROL AND CORUNNA (THE GROYNE). (From a chart published by Joyce Gold, 1818.)
The first attempt was made upon Corunna, where troops were landed, and the defenders driven into the town. On the following day, the lower town, after an assault by land and by water, was carried, and the governor, Don Juan de Luna, was taken, a great quantity of ammunition and stores being destroyed. The English discipline was, unfortunately, lax, and the men got drunk with the captured wine in the cellars, while the Spaniards annoyed them by burning such of their own ships as lay in harbour, after having first overloaded their guns, which as they burst or went off caused some damage to the invaders. An attack upon the upper town was unsuccessful. Hearing of the approach of a Spanish relieving force, Norreys, on May 6th, advanced with about two-thirds of his troops to meet it, and defeated it with great slaughter, and with very little loss to himself. But when, having burnt the enemy's camp and the neighbouring villages, he returned, the chiefs decided to abandon the siege. On May 8th, therefore, the lower town was set on fire, and the expedition re-embarked.
From Corunna the fleet proceeded to the coast of Portugal, and on May 16, arrived off Peniche, in Estremadura. The troops were landed, and, after the place had surrendered to Dom Antonio, were marched overland towards Lisbon, taking Torres Vedras on their ​way. As for the fleet, it coasted southwards as far as Cascais, at the mouth of the Tagus.
The army arrived before Lisbon on May 25th, and seized the suburb of Santa Caterina; but the inhabitants betrayed no enthusiasm for Dom Antonio, guns and ammunition for a siege were wanting, and there was a great amount of sickness. A council of war decided upon a retreat, and, after lying unmolested for two days, the force marched to Cascais, which in the meantime had been taken by the fleet.
LISBON. (From a chart published by Joyce Gold, 1818.)
This expedition did no good to the cause of Dom Antonio, and was in many ways a failure; yet it greatly injured Spain. On its way south, it had captured many vessels, including fifteen bound for Lisbon with men and provisions destined for the preparation of a new Armada; and at Cascais it took sixty sail, belonging to the Hanse Towns, laden with provisions and stores for the same object.
The army was re-embarked, and the fleet weighed to return home. No sooner was it at sea than it was set upon by about twenty Spanish galleys, which, however, were easily driven off. On the way north, Vigo was attacked and burnt; but nothing further occurred until England was reached. Camden and others aver that a hundred and fifty cannon, and a large booty rewarded the adventurers, but this is doubtful; and there is evidence that the expedition cost a great number of lives, the amount of sickness in the fleet being most terrible. The captured ships belonging to the Hanse Towns would have been released, after the confiscation of the goods found in them, had not the queen been piqued by the action of an assembly which was convened at Lübeck to consider the matter, and which talked somewhat wildly about measures of revenge. Her majesty, upon this, made prize of all but two, ​which she returned that they might inform the authorities of the Hanse Towns of the fate of the rest.
Sir William Monson, commenting on the affair, points out that the landing at Corunna imperilled the main object of the expedition, not only by permitting the men to drink new wine, which seriously affected their health, but also by exposing them to a check which acted as a discouragement. But the real cause of failure was the ill-provided state of the fleet, some of the ships not having four days' victuals when they left Plymouth. Drake was blamed for having lain at Cascais instead of pushing up the Tagus to Lisbon; but it must be remembered that his ships were not in a position to supply the army, and that, had he mounted the river, he would have had to run the gauntlet of three castles, one of which Monson held to be the most impregnable, from seaward, in Europe. Moreover, if he had gone up, he might have been unable to get down again, the place being subject to contrary winds, and a strong current running in the estuary. And finally, there was a squadron of galleys at Lisbon.
During the absence of Drake and Norreys, Cumberland, having returned from his abortive second expedition, fitted out a new one of seven sail, including H.M.S. Victory, lent him by the queen, and commanded, under the earl, by Christopher Lister, and the armed vessels Megg, Captain William Monson, Margaret, and a caravel. Quitting Plymouth on June 18th, 1589, they took several prizes in the chops of the Channel, and were able to relieve some of the home-coming ships of Drake. Off the coast of Spain, they removed a quantity of Portuguese goods from some Hansa merchantmen. Off St. Michael's, in the Azores, they cut out some valuable vessels. At Fayal they did likewise, and, moreover, took the town. Numerous other successes were won, but not without considerable loss. Lister, on the way home in charge of one of the prizes, was drowned, and the rest of the expedition, including two or three English vessels which had joined it at sea, suffered great privations ere it again reached England.
Another privateering voyage was made in 1589 by the Dog, 70 tons, William Michelson, master. She took several prizes in the Gulf of Mexico; but a number of her people were treacherously ​killed by the Spanish under a flag of truce, and she had to come home owing to being short-handed.
The disappointments of Drake's voyage did not discourage either queen or country. In 1590, Elizabeth patriotically set apart £8970 yearly out of her revenue for the repair of the navy; and ten ships, in two squadrons, under Sir John Hawkyns and Sir Martin Frobiser respectively, were commissioned to cruise off the coast of Spain to intercept the trade from the Indies. Philip heard of these preparations, and fitted out a squadron of twenty ships under Don Alonso de Bazan to cover the home-coming of his rich carracks. But, presently thinking better of the matter, he recalled Don Alonso, and sent a dispatch to the Indies, ordering the treasure ships to postpone their departure. Spain had learnt to depend for much of her prosperity upon the annual arrival of the carracks; and the delay caused much distress and many bankruptcies. But on the other hand, the English squadrons spent seven months in fruitless cruising, without taking so much as a single prize. As they returned, they made an ineffectual attempt upon Fayal, which since its capture by the Earl of Cumberland in 1589 had been re-fortified.
In the same year, 1590, a very gallant action was fought near Gibraltar between ten English merchantmen, homeward bound from the Levant, and twelve Spanish galleys. It occurred on April 24th. In the course of it, two Flamand vessels joined the English; but, seeing the great odds against them, one of them presently struck. For six hours the fight continued, and then the galleys, much disabled, withdrew, the English having lost neither ship nor man.
Cumberland fitted out a fourth expedition in 1591, consisting of H.M.S. Garland and seven armed vessels. He took some prizes; but two of them were subsequently recovered by the Spaniards, Captain William Monson being taken with them and carried prisoner to Peniche. Learning of the Spanish preparations at Corunna, the earl inquired as to them, and sent word to Lord Thomas Howard, and then, his ship being in an unsatisfactory state, returned to England.
In 1591, also, an effort, somewhat similar to that of 1590, to ​capture the treasure ships was made by a squadron of seven vessels of the Royal Navy, with six victuallers and some pinnaces, under Lord Thomas Howard, who sailed to Flores, in the Azores, and remained in the neighbourhood for six months. He narrowly escaped being surprised there by Don Alonso de Bazan, who had been sent out with a fleet of fifty-three ships to meet and convoy home the expected carracks. The Earl of Cumberland, as has been mentioned above, had happened to learn of the fitting out of this fleet at Corunna, and had, with much foresight, ordered Mr. Middleton, master of the Moonshine pinnace, to discover its force and object, and then, if necessary, to proceed with all speed and warn Lord Thomas. Middleton kept the Spaniards in sight until there was no longer any doubt of their intentions; and thereupon set all sail for Flores, arriving very little ahead of the enemy. This was on August 31st.
Howard at once weighed. His second in command, Sir Richard Greynvile, of the Revenge, had a number of men ashore, and, according to some accounts, waited for them. Camden, and others, have it that he refused to turn his back upon the enemy, and so allowed himself to be hemmed in between the Spaniards and the island. Some also suppose that he mistook the squadron of Don Alonso for the expected treasure ships, and therefore disobeyed the orders of his commander-in-chief. But, be this as it may, he was presently surrounded and attacked by practically the whole of the best part of the Spanish fleet. Howard, with the remaining six men-of-war, seems to have been engaged for a considerable time with the enemy, but not in such a position as to afford any support to Greynvile. The Foresight made a serious effort to assist the Revenge, but, owing to the wind, could not get very near her.
The Revenge fought against these overwhelming odds for fifteen hours; and Greynvile, no matter whether he was, as has often been asserted, or was not, blameworthy as being rash, stubborn, and ​disobedient, immortalised himself by a defence such as has never, either before or since, been witnessed upon the sea.
At one time his ship was simultaneously laid aboard by five large vessels, including the San Felipe, of 1500 tons and seventy-eight guns. At no time had she less than two vessels alongside, and in hot and close action. As one Spaniard withdrew disabled, another, with fresh men, cool guns, and new supplies of ammunition, took her place. Fifteen ships engaged her. Of these she sank at least two, including the Asuncion. Early in the fight, one of the victuallers, the George Noble, of London, at great peril to herself, drew near, and, falling under the lee of the Revenge, asked Sir Richard if he had any commands. Greynvile bid her shift for herself, and leave him to his fortune.
The fight had begun at about three o'clock in the afternoon. Soon afterwards Greynvile had been wounded, but he refused, until 11 P.M., to quit the deck, and then, receiving a wound in the body from a musket bullet, went unwillingly below to get it dressed. The surgeon who attended to him was killed at his side, and, for a third time, Greynvile was wounded, on this occasion in the head.
In the small hours, the situation of the devoted ship was deplorable. All her best men lay killed or wounded; she was perfectly unmanageable, and her last barrel of powder had been expended. Greynvile, seeing the futility of further fighting, ordered the Revenge to be sunk; but to this the surviving officers would not agree, and terms were at length made with the Spaniards upon the understanding that the lives and liberties of the gallant ship's company should be spared.
When the Revenge surrendered, she had six feet of water in her hold, not a mast standing, and but about sixty men, nearly all of whom were wounded, alive, out of a crew which, at the outset, may have numbered two hundred and fifty, if all were on board. But sickness had been rife in the fleet, and no matter what may have been the number of men victualled in the Revenge on the day of the action, only about a hundred of them went into the fight fit for duty.
Greynvile, with every mark of admiration and respect, was carried on board the Spanish admiral. Two days later he died. His ship, overtaken five days after the battle by a storm, foundered off St. Michael's with two hundred Spaniards in her, and in the same storm there perished fifteen or sixteen Spanish men-of-war.
​Within twenty-four hours of the fight, the home-coming carracks fell in with the fleet of Don Alonso de Bazan, and by it were safely convoyed to Spain.
Lord Thomas Howard's squadron, after maintaining a distant fight until nightfall, got away. On its homeward passage it made several valuable prizes. A little force of victuallers, fitted out in London to carry supplies to it, had sailed on August 17th, but had been dispersed by bad weather, and obliged to put back. Some of the vessels, however, before they reached port, picked up three rich prizes in the Bay, and took one of them into Plymouth.
That year, 1591, saw some other very gallant actions, which, although not strictly naval, must be here recorded. Three English ships and a barque, belonging to Sir George Carey, who was afterwards second Lord Hunsdon, were in the West Indies, engaged apparently in trade, when, off Cape Corrientes, they fell in with six Spanish vessels, four of which were large. The English promptly attacked the three ships, two of which were named Hopewell and Swallow, engaging one, and the barque, named the Content, engaging the other of the two biggest Spaniards. After some fighting, the three English ships, for some reasons not fully explained, drew off, leaving the little Content to her fate. For three hours, after she had got away from her original opponent, she fought the two smallest Spanish vessels. She then maintained a running fight with two of the large and one of the small ships, endeavouring meanwhile to get into shallow water by using her sweeps. The Spaniards, when they could no longer follow her with their deeper craft, double-manned the small vessel, and towed and rowed her after the Content. The Englishman was being slowly forced between the big ships and the shore, and was in a most precarious position, when a lucky shot from her temporarily disabled one of the larger Spaniards. This accident freed her, and enabled her to make an offing; but no sooner had she done so than she fell in with two fresh Spanish galleys, one of which presently tried to board. But the Content drove off her enemies on two occasions, and at last, after a contest which lasted, with intermissions, from 7 A.M. until 11 P.M., made her escape with a loss, strange to say, of but two men wounded, though her hull and rigging were cut to pieces. She had no more than twenty-three officers and men on board, and of these only thirteen took part in the action, the rest being below.
​Another gallant affair was the action fought by the Centurion, Turkey merchant, Robert Bradshaw, master, with five Spanish galleys, near the Gut of Gibraltar. Three vessels simultaneously tried to board her, but she drove them all off, and, after more than five hours, induced them to leave her. Bradshaw, whose crew consisted of forty-eight men and boys, lost four killed and ten wounded.
Attempts against Spanish treasure and Spanish treasure ships remained for many years among the most attractive ventures for English seamen. One of these attempts was organised in 1592 by Sir Walter Ralegh and his friends, with assistance from the queen's government. Ralegh's original plan seems to have been either to await the home-coming Spanish fleet in the Atlantic or to cross to the Isthmus of Darien and seize the town of Panama, where the Spaniards were accustomed to assemble treasure, prior to shipping it home by way of the East Indies. Sir Walter was at the time in a restless and dissatisfied condition, owing to the queen's favour for him having diminished, and he may have thought it necessary to achieve some new exploit in order to reinstate himself.
Two only of her majesty's ships, the Garland, of 700 tons, 300 men, and 45 guns, and the Foresight, of 300 tons, 120 men, and 37 guns, participated in this expedition. With them were associated thirteen armed merchant vessels. Sir Walter Ralegh, in the first instance, took chief command, but, as will be seen, returned ere the adventure had fairly begun, and was superseded by Frobiser. Captain Robert Crosse commanded the Foresight, and the land forces on board the squadron were under Sir John Burgh, although he also exercised some kind of naval direction.
After two or three months' detention by contrary winds, the expedition sailed on May 1st; but on the day following, Sir Martin Frobiser, in the Lord Admiral's pinnace Disdain, overtook it, bringing from Elizabeth letters revoking Ralegh's command in favour of Frobiser, and commanding Ralegh to return. Sir Walter seems to have been hurt and disappointed, and to have determined to proceed in defiance of orders; but when, upon reaching the ​latitude of Cape Finisterre, he learnt that the Spaniards had received intelligence of his preparations, and had, in consequence, decided that none of their ships should leave America that year, he quitted the squadron and went home.
SIR MARTIN FROBISER, KT. (From the 'Heroologia.')
His departure caused much confusion, many of the merchant captains never having undertaken, and being unwilling, to serve under Frobiser. Several, therefore, quitted the squadron, and cruised on their own account; but before they separated they took, off the coast of Spain, a Biscayan ship of 600 tons, laden with ironwork, and sent her to England. After the parting, Sir John Burgh captured a fly-boat, which, however, cost him a long chase to the southward, and drew him within sight of a considerable Spanish fleet, which was to seaward of him, and which threatened to hem him in with the shore. He nevertheless escaped by the ​exercise of superior seamanship, and rejoined the Foresight and one other vessel which had been placed by Frobiser under his command, with orders to cruise to the Azores. Frobiser himself, with three or four ships, remained off the Spanish coast, and his craft being all indifferent sailers, did but little.
Taking several caravels on their passage, Sir John Burgh and Captain Crosse reached Flores, and there fell in with three ships belonging to the Earl of Cumberland's expedition which were in chase of a carrack. The Portuguese crew, despairing of escape, ran this carrack ashore, took out some of her cargo, and set her on fire; but the English, landing a hundred men, extinguished the flames, and saved part of the lading. They also captured the carrack's purser, who was by threats induced to admit that another carrack had been ordered to make the island, and was probably in the neighbourhood.
Sir John Burgh joined his friends in the search for this vessel, and the ships of the two commanders were so disposed northward and southward, on a line about seven leagues westward of Flores, as to cover and observe one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty miles of sea.
Thus the united squadrons lay, from June 29th to August 3rd, when some carracks being sighted, a sharp engagement presently ensued with them. The English were still scattered, and the enemy appears to have concentrated on he ships of Sir John Burgh and of those captains nearest to him. Sir John himself was reduced to an almost sinking condition, and might have been taken had not Captain Robert Crosse, in H.M.S. Foresight, placed himself athwart the threatened vessel's stern, and gallantly borne the brunt of the attack for three hours. This gave time for other English ships to come up. How many carracks were originally engaged does not appear, but it would seem that ere the bulk of the English forces arrived on the scene, all save one of the enemy had withdrawn from the fight. Crosse then carried that remaining one by boarding. She proved to be the Madre de Dios, a seven-decked ship, measuring one hundred and sixty-five feet from stem to stern, and carrying six hundred men, and a miscellaneous cargo valued, upon its arrival in ​England, and after the vessel had been partially looted, at £150,000. The Madre de Dios, which was of 1600 tons' burthen, was brought to England. Most of the profits of the venture were confiscated by the queen, in spite of the fact that only two of her ships had been concerned, and that of these the smaller alone had had a hand in the taking of the carrack. The adventuring merchants were, in consequence, greatly discontented.
Don Alonso de Bazan, who had been directed by his sovereign to proceed direct to Flores to await the coming of the carracks, had disobeyed his instructions, and had sailed instead, with twenty-three galleons, to St. Michael's, for which he had a consignment of guns, intending to go on to Flores later. When he heard of what had occurred, he pursued the English resolutely enough for a hundred leagues, but failing to catch them, he was, upon his return to Spain, and in spite of his great previous services, broken for his disobedience and negligence.
Cumberland's fifth expedition, which had thus united with Burgh, consisted of five vessels, none of which belonged to the navy. The earl did not accompany it, but gave the command to Captain Norton.
Other expeditions of 1592, were Christopher Newport's privateering voyage, in the course of which Ocoa, and two other towns in what is now Haiti, were sacked, Puerto Caballos, in the Bay of Honduras, was plundered, and several ships were taken or destroyed; and William King's voyage to the Gulf of Mexico. This was not less successful than Newport's venture, though King's operations were confined to the sea. The Amity, of London, Thomas White master, on her way home from a voyage to Barbary, fell in with two Spanish vessels, both of which, after a very stubborn fight, he took. They proved to be laden with quicksilver, wine, missals, and indulgences, and were extremely valuable prizes.
The year 1593 witnessed the setting out of Richard Hawkyns's expedition to the South Sea. The following year saw the inception of Lancaster and Venner's expedition to Brazil, and of Dudley's voyage to Trinidad.
Few purely naval events occurred in 1593, the year of the Treaty of Melun; but, in the course of it, the Earl of Cumberland went to sea in command of his sixth privateering expedition, with ​H.M. ships Golden Lion and Bonaventure, and seven armed vessels, and with Sir William Monson and Sir Edward Yorke as his seconds. Monson records that his ship, the Lion, during this cruise, obliged twelve foreign "hulks" to strike to her, in spite of their refusal to do so until they were forced. The earl, on account of illness, had to return prematurely; but three of his smaller vessels went on to the West Indies, and there did a good deal of damage to the Spaniards.
Even prior to the conclusion of the Treaty of Melun, friendship between England and France, to the prejudice of Spain, had become very close and cordial, and Elizabeth had sent Sir John Norreys with three thousand men to co-operate with Henry IV. against the League, and against the Spaniards who were actively supporting the League in the neighbourhood of Brest. Henry, fearing lest Spain might dispatch naval as well as military assistance to his domestic enemies, persuaded Elizabeth, in 1594, to send a fleet to blockade Brest by sea. The League had by that time collapsed, owing to Henry's abjuration of Protestantism in 1593, and Norreys, with his troops, had been withdrawn. But the Duc de Mercœur, who had pretensions to the independent sovereignty of Brittany, and whose only hope lay in Spanish help, was still hostile to Henry, and rather than submit, delivered to his Spanish friends Blavet, now Port Louis, in Morbihan, and winked at, if he did not actually facilitate, their seizure of the peninsula of Camaret, between the Bay of Douarnenez and the roadstead of Brest. The Spaniards began to strongly fortify themselves there; and as their position threatened Brest and Le Conquêt, and bade fair presently to enable them to obtain the mastery of the chief naval station on the Atlantic seaboard of France, Norreys was ordered back to assist Marshal d'Aumont on the land side, and Sir Martin Frobiser, with a squadron, was directed to co-operate from the sea for the expulsion of interlopers who, had they ever securely established themselves in Brest, must have become highly dangerous neighbours for England.
Frobiser's force, according to Monson, included only four of her majesty's ships, but to these there seem to have been added six, or possibly more, armed merchantmen. The main Spanish work was ​at Crozon, and to the Bay of Crozon Frobiser proceeded in October. Norreys and D'Aumont, in the meantime, reduced Morlaix and Quimper, and on November 1st, arrived before Crozon and opened communications with the squadron. The attack on the fort was at once begun, and prosecuted with great energy; but the defence was not less sturdy, and the loss of life on both sides was great. The final and successful assault was made with the help of Frobiser and the officers and seamen of his squadron. In the course of it, Sir Martin received a ball in the side. The wound was not in itself very serious, but it was rendered so by the inexperience of the surgeons; and although Frobiser brought his squadron back to Plymouth, he survived but a few weeks after he had landed.
He was one of the most able seamen of an age which produced an unusual number of distinguished sailors; his courage and resource were remarkable, and he seems to have been in private life an admirable character; but he was blunt in manner, and so exceedingly strict a disciplinarian that he was never popular with his commands. It is probable, from the fact that no holograph letters of his appear to be extant, that he had been ill-educated, and that he could write little if any more than his name.
The Earl of Cumberland's seventh expedition left Plymouth on April 6th, 1594. The squadron consisted of the armed ships, Royal Exchange, 250 tons, George Cave, master; Mayflower, 250 tons, William Anthony, master; Samson, Nicholas Downton, master; a caravel and a pinnace. It made for the Azores, and, about ten days after having sighted them, fell in with a large and very richly laden Spanish carrack. The Royal Exchange, Mayflower, and Samson engaged her simultaneously at close quarters, but had to cast off from her, as she presently caught fire, and the flames threatened to involve them also, and actually did them some damage. The carrack finally blew up, very few out of about 1100 souls on board being saved. In the struggle, William Anthony was killed, and George Cave was so badly wounded that he died in consequence after his return to England. The expedition refreshed at Flores, and, on June 29th, met with and engaged another large carrack. She beat them off, yet not without difficulty, and, having ​suffered severely, the English vessels made their way back to England.
In the meantime there were apprehensions of renewed Spanish attempts upon a large scale against England. There was some small foundation for the rumours which prevailed, but the report received unmerited attention, especially in Ireland, where local disaffection was always in haste to credit foreign enemies with more than Irish hatred for Elizabeth and her representatives.
These apprehensions led to the fitting out, in the summer of 1594, of a small English squadron, which, designed to cruise in home waters, effected nothing, and met with no extraordinary adventures; for, although an insignificant Spanish force of four galleys did, in fact, make a descent in July upon Mount's Bay, and burnt Mousehole, Newlyn, and Penzance, the English squadron was not then in the neighbourhood, and the enemy escaped without interruption. The affair was relatively of small importance, and did not cost a single Englishman either his life or his liberty. It was, indeed, a mere momentary raid.
Another squadron, designed to act against the Spanish possessions in the West Indies and Central America, was placed in 1595 under the command of Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkyns, and consisted of six-and-twenty vessels, of which the following, and possibly others, were ships of her majesty:—
| Ships. | Tons. | Men. | Guns. | Commanders. |
| Defiance | 500 | 250 | 46 | Sir Francis Drake. |
| Garland | 700 | 300 | 45 | Sir John Hawkyns. |
| Hope | 600 | 250 | 48 | Captain Gilbert Yorke. |
| Bonaventure | 600 | 250 | 47 | Captain Troughton. |
| Foresight | 300 | 160 | 37 | Captain Wynter. |
| Adventure | 250 | 120 | 26 | Captain Thomas Drake. |
The land forces embarked were commanded by Sir Thomas Baskerville.
This squadron was fitted out upon the express recommendation of Drake and Hawkyns. Both were, no doubt, animated by a sincere and patriotic desire to injure Spain, as well as by the ​personal desire of gain and glory; but Hawkyns was probably influenced by yet another motive. His son Richard, in the Dainty, had been captured by the Spaniards on June 21st, 1594, and was still detained by them; and the father may have hoped to take some distinguished Spaniard who would form a suitable exchange.
The original intention was to proceed to Nombre de Dios, land there, and march across the isthmus to Panama, in order to seize a Spanish treasure reported to have been brought thither from Peru. But five days before the squadron sailed, the commanders were advised by the queen that, according to news received from Spain, a treasure ship dismasted had put in for shelter at Puerto Rico; and they were ordered to call at that island on their way, and, if possible, to possess themselves of the disabled vessel and her contents, Puerto Rico being but weakly defended.
The squadron left Plymouth on August 28th, 1595, and arrived off Grand Canary on September 27th. Drake and Baskerville were of opinion that the place should be attempted in order that the ships might be victualled. Hawkyns desired to proceed at once; but as the people were importunate, provisions short, and Baskerville confident that he could gain his object in four days, Hawkyns reluctantly consented to an attack being made. It was, as he had anticipated, unsuccessful; and the squadron, no doubt somewhat discouraged by the initial failure, steered for Dominica, where it arrived on October 29th. Time was wasted there and at Guadaloupe in trafficking with the natives, and in building pinnaces; and opportunity was given to the Spaniards, not only to learn all that was intended against them, but also to concert measures of defence. The enemy captured a small English vessel, the Francis, which had straggled from the main body, and by torture forced her master and seamen to disclose the English plans. They then forwarded the intelligence with all haste to Puerto Rico, where the treasure was promptly buried; and they warned both the islands and the main of the impending blow.
Thus, when, on November 12th, Drake and Hawkyns found themselves before San Juan de Puerto Rico, the place was prepared to receive them. As the squadron anchored, it was fired at by the ​forts, and Sir Nicholas Clifford, second in command of the troops, was mortally wounded. A still heavier blow to the expedition was the death of Sir John Hawkyns, which occurred on the same day. According to Hakluyt, this great commander had been dispirited by the knowledge that the capture of the Francis could not but result in the disclosure of all his plans to the enemy, and had from that moment sickened.
The Spaniards had blocked the mouth of the port by sinking a ship across the centre of the channel, and by fixing booms thence to the forts on shore; and within they had five well-armed and well-manned vessels; but on the evening of November 13th, Baskerville, manning and arming the pinnaces and boats of the squadron to the number of five-and-twenty, forced a way in under a heavy fire from the Spanish guns, and set fire to the five ships. A most obstinate fight was carried on for some time in the harbour. The English, however, were finally repulsed, and, concluding that any further attempt would be equally futile, they re-embarked, and sailed across to the mainland.
On December 1st, they burnt La Hacha, in the modern United States of Columbia, in spite of the willingness of the inhabitants to ransom the place for thirty-four thousand ducats. Other places in the neighbourhood were treated with similar barbarity, and some prisoners and pillage were secured. Santa Marta was taken and burnt on December 19th, but no loot was found there. The Spaniards at Nombre de Dios made some resistance; but that place also fell on December 28th, and with it were captured several vessels, and some silver, gold, jewels, and money.
From Nombre de Dios, a landing party of seven hundred and fifty soldiers, under Sir Thomas Baskerville, started across the isthmus for Panama, but, finding the march very arduous, being galled by fire from unseen foes, and learning that forts obstructed their passage, the troops returned, and, harassed and half-starved, rejoined the squadron on January 2nd, 1596.
The misfortune affected the health of Drake, who fell ill with dysentery. He was, nevertheless, contemplating an attack upon Puerto Bello when, on January 28th, death overtook him. His ​body, enclosed in a leaden coffin, found a fitting resting-place in the sea; and the expedition, deprived of both its admirals, set sail for England.
Thus, within a space of less than three months, did a single and only very moderately successful expedition cost England the lives of two of her most notable sea captains.
Hawkyns was a nan of unusual and cultivated ability, and of exceptional skill as a seaman. Although his early life had been stormy, and his whole career had been adventurous in the highest degree, he remained to a large extent unspoilt to the end, in that he was merciful in action, ready to forgive, and ever a strict observer of his word. Unlike some of his distinguished naval contemporaries, he was cautious, reserved, and slow in making up his mind. The navy, of which he was treasurer for seventeen years, owed, and still owes, much to him; and although he had faults, chief among which may be ranked extreme bluntness of manner, jealousy, and an excessive love of money, he was withal a man of great and remarkable character.
Drake possessed at least equal ability, but had little acquired knowledge of many arts save those connected with navigation and war, in which he stood unrivalled. Less cautious and provident than Hawkyns, he was also less greedy of gain, and, indeed, appears to have generally set the welfare of his queen and country far above his own private advantage. He had many fine qualities, most of which were expressed in his person, which was that of a healthy, strong, and genial adventurer; and among his defects there seem to have been none much more serious than love of display, occasional quickness of temper, lack of reserve when among his equals, and a habit of boasting.
This fatal expedition was brought home by Sir Thomas Baskerville and Captain Troughton. A Spanish fleet had been sent from Europe to intercept the squadron, and lay waiting for it near the Isla de Pinos, off Cuba. There were twenty sail of Spaniards in company when the English were sighted; and, the forces on each side being nearly equal, a hot action resulted. After about two ​hours' firing, the enemy sheered off, having lost one vessel by fire, and having had several badly mauled; and the English, proceeding, reached England without further adventure in May, 1596.
The year 1595 witnessed two other expeditions of some importance. One was the voyage of a little squadron under Amyas Preston and George Somers to the West Indies. It was a privateering venture, and, in the course of it, the island of Porto Santo, near Madeira, was taken and pillaged, and considerable damage was done to the Spaniards on the coast of what is now Venezuela. The other was the eighth of the Earl of Cumberland's voyages. For the occasion the earl had built the Scourge of Malice, 900 tons, at Deptford. His intention was to personally lead the expedition, and, indeed, he actually started with it, but was recalled by the queen. The other ships were the Alcedo, Captain William Monson; the Anthony, David Jarret, master; and an old "frigate." Cumberland's appointment of Captain Langton to take his place as "admiral" disgusted Monson, who left the other ships, and cruised, but to no effect, on his own account. The remaining vessels made several prizes, but narrowly escaped falling into the hands of a large Spanish fleet.
It is interesting to note here that the Scourge of Malice, a famous ship in her day, was sold, after Cumberland had done with her, to the East India Company, and, re-named the Dragon, distinguished herself against the Portuguese in the Eastern seas in the time of James I.
Rumours of a renewed intention on the part of Spain to invade England still persisted. Indeed, Spain had apparently forgotten the catastrophe of the Armada, and, there is little doubt, harboured some fresh designs against Elizabeth, and particularly against her dominions in Ireland. Yet it is more than possible that the great English expedition of 1596 would not have sailed when, and struck as, it did, but for the fact that, owing to French mismanagement and folly in declining proffered English help, the Spaniards succeeded in making themselves masters of Calais. This stirred England, just in the same way as the probability of a Spanish occupation of Brest had stirred it in 1594. Preparations for an ​expedition against Cadiz were in progress before Calais fell. After the fall of Calais, they were hastened to such good effect that the fleet sailed about six weeks later.
The ships of her majesty engaged in this important adventure were—
| Ships. | Tons. | Men. | Guns. | Commanders. |
| Ark Royal | 800 | 400 | 55 | The Lord High Admiral, Joint-Adml. Captain Amyas Preston. |
| Repulse | 700 | 350 | 50 | Robert, Earl of Essex, Joint-Admiral. Captain William Monson. |
| Mere Honour | 800 | 400 | 41 | Lord Thomas Howard, Vice-Admiral. |
| Warspite | 600 | 300 | 29 | Sir Walter Ralegh, Rear-Admiral. |
| Lion | 500 | 250 | 60 | Sir Robert Southwell. |
| Rainbow | 500 | 250 | 26 | Sir Francis Vere. |
| Nonpareil | 500 | 250 | 56 | Sir Robert Dudley. |
| Vanguard | 500 | 250 | 31 | Sir John Wingfeild. |
| Mary Rose | 600 | 250 | 39 | Sir George Carew. |
| Dreadnought | 400 | 200 | 41 | Alexander Clifford. |
| Swiftsure | 400 | 200 | 41 | Robert Crosse. |
| Quittance | 200 | 108 | 25 | Sir George Gifford. |
| Tremontana | 140 | 70 | 21 | — King. |
| Crane | 200 | 108 | 24 |
with probably three more, making seventeen in all. With these, according to Speed, there were associated three vessels belonging to the Lord High Admiral, twenty-four belonging to the States-General, and armed merchantmen and victuallers sufficient to bring up the total number of sail to 150. De Jonge says that eighteen of the twenty-four Dutch vessels were of from 200 to 400 tons burden, and carried from sixteen to twenty-four guns apiece, with from 100 ​to 130 men. The contingent was under the orders of Jonkheer Jan van Duijvenvoorde, Lord of Warmond and Admiral of Holland; but the English Lord High Admiral was naval commander-in-chief, and for the first time a Dutch fleet obeyed an English flag-officer.
JAN VAN DUIJVENVOORDE, ADMIRAL OF HOLLAND. (From the engraving by H. Goltzius, 1579)
On board the fleet there were, in addition to the Dutch, 7360 landsmen and 6772 seamen. The troops were under the Lord High Admiral and Essex, as joint generals.
​Queen Elizabeth's instructions to Howard of Effingham and Essex may be briefly summarised. The generals were advised that the armament had been originally collected because of the prevalence of reports that Spain was preparing a greater Armada than that of 1588 to invade England, and to aid the Irish rebels. The reports had turned out to be exaggerated. Moreover, the Spanish fleet had been scattered, partly for the pursuit of Drake and partly for the reinforcement of the Indies. But there was still danger that the Irish rebels might be assisted, and that might best be prevented by the capture or destruction of "some good number" of the King of Spain's ships in his ports. The duties of the generals would, therefore, be to discover the strength, whereabouts, and designs of the Spanish navy, and the nature and quantity of stores collected in Spain for purposes of aggression over sea; to destroy any vessels intended for Ireland, the Narrow Seas, or Calais, to generally injure the naval power of Spain, to avoid the unnecessary hazarding of ships and men, to take undefended towns, especially if they should be understood to contain treasure; not to injure non-combatants, and to preserve all booty for her majesty's disposal. The two generals were to be assisted by a council of five, composed of Lord Thomas Howard, Sir Walter Ralegh, Sir Francis Vere, Sir Conyers Clifford, and Sir George Carew; and the proceedings of the generals and council were to be from time to time recorded for the queen's information by Anthony Ashley, one of the clerks of her Privy Council, who would accompany the fleet for the purpose. If, after the attainment of the main objects of the expedition, the generals should learn of the home-coming of any rich Spanish carracks from the Indies, they might exercise their discretion as to effecting their capture; but the fleet was not to be kept abroad longer than needful.
Before the sailing of the expedition, the queen's attitude towards it, and especially towards Essex, changed; and, almost at the last moment, the two leaders received letters of recall. These were withdrawn only upon the urgent remonstrances of Lord Thomas Howard, Sir Francis Vere, and other subordinate officers.
​The instructions issued by Howard of Effingham and Essex to the captains of the fleet will be found at length in the previous chapter. Before sailing, the joint generals also published in Spanish, French, Italian, and Dutch a manifesto "to all Christian people," setting forth the causes and objects of the expedition, proclaiming friendship to neutrals, and hostility to Spain and her allies, and requiring all who might have aided Philip in the past to withdraw from him upon pain of being made to suffer for their continued adherence to Elizabeth's enemies.
The fleet sailed from Plymouth on June 1st, 1596. With a north-easterly breeze, it quickly made Cape Ortegal; and there, being off the enemy's coast, was organised for instant action. We do not know what was its formation; but Monson says that the True Love, the Lion's Whelp, and the Witness, the three best sailers in the command, were dispatched ahead to look out for Spanish scouts or advice-boats, and to prevent any such from returning with news of the approaching danger. By way of additional precaution, a course was taken well out of sight of land. Every captain had been already provided with sealed instructions, to be opened only in case of separation from the fleet, or after rounding Cape St. Vincent, directing him to make rendezvous off Cadiz; and he had been ordered, in the event of his capture by the enemy appearing imminent, to sink these instructions.
Robert Devereux. Earl of Essex From W. T. Fry's Engraving after the original by Hilliard
Sampson Low Marston and Company L$^{td}$. London
Owing to some miscalculation on the part of the masters, the fleet arrived off Cadiz a few hours sooner than had been anticipated, early in the morning of June 20th. At a council held previously, it had been determined to land on the peninsula of San Sebastian, the westernmost point of the Isle of Leon, on which Cadiz stands; and the fleet therefore dropped anchor off the peninsula; but, the wind being brisk and the sea high, and four galleys lying in such a position under the land as to be able to intercept in-coming boats, nothing was that day attempted.
After some hours had been spent in communications between the generals, a scheme, which Monson says that he had himself recommended, was resolved upon. The project of first landing was given up, and it was decided to begin operations by boldly entering the harbour and seizing the shipping.
Essex demanded to have the honour of leading the way in; but the Lord High Admiral had been strictly charged by the queen not to suffer the earl to expose himself unnecessarily, and Essex had to appear to submit. That night the order of attack was arranged, the posts of honour being assigned to Lord Thomas Howard, Sir Walter Ralegh, Sir Robert Southwell, Sir Francis Vere, Sir George Carew, Captain Crosse, and others of less note.
At dawn on June 21st, these officers, having rounded the north end of the island, passed Fort San Felipe and the galleys moored near it, and, in the face of a heavy fire, made for the mass of ​Spanish ships within the port. These fell slowly back, but the galleys, which were so stationed as to present their heavy bow armament to the advancing English, and which were covered by the town batteries behind them, very severely galled the advance, and especially inconvenienced Sir Francis Vere in the Rainbow. Essex, who witnessed this from the northern side of the entrance to the port, could no longer be restrained, and gallantly threw himself into the fight. Howard of Effingham, at about the same time, entered in a pinnace, being unwilling to risk the Ark Royal in such narrow waters. The English pressed forward steadily, driving the Spanish galleons and merchantmen up the harbour past more galleys, which were moored in Puntal Road, and which fought furiously. The Isle of Leon was joined to the mainland by a bridge at Suaco. Upon reaching the neighbourhood of the bridge, the fugitive Spanish vessels fell into great confusion. There was, however, a narrow canal whereby they could reach the open sea on the south side of the island. Entrance to this canal seems to have been obtainable by means of a swing opening near the island end of the bridge. Into the canal the fleeing ships crowded pell-mell, only to discover that at the seaward end of it was stationed Sir John Wingfeild in the Vanguard. A good many, however, succeeded in thus escaping, though Sir John was exceedingly vigilant and arrested several.
CADIZ HARBOUR. (From a chart published by Joyce Gold, 1809.)
In the meantime, very hot fighting between the English and Spanish men-of-war continued in Puntal Road, where Howard himself was engaged. But towards noon the action slackened, many of the Spanish vessels having by that hour been destroyed by the English fire, or sunk or set fire to by their own people to ​save them from capture. The Spanish flagship San Felipe, a ship of 1500 tons' burden, blew up and, by her explosion, destroyed two or three craft that lay near her. So rapidly did the flames make progress that the Spaniards, having fired their vessels, often had no time to take to their boats, and, throwing themselves into the water, would have perished, had they not been taken up by the English. Numbers, however, were drowned.
Two ships only of any importance were taken, the San Mateo and the San Andres, galleons of 1200 tons. These were saved by the exertions of the Lord High Admiral and Sir Thomas Gerard, and for several years afterwards they figured in the English navy as the St. Matthew and the St. Andrew. All the rest, except those which escaped by way of the canal, were sunk, burnt, or driven ashore.
While these events were in progress, the Dutch contingent gallantly attacked and carried Puntal, and Essex soon afterwards landed eight hundred men a league from the city, with a view to storming it on the land side. But first Sir Conyers Clifford, Sir Christopher Blount, and Sir Thomas Gerard were dispatched with a party to Suaco to destroy the entrance to the canal by which the fugitive ships had escaped, and to cut the bridge in order to prevent the arrival of succours from the mainland.
When these measures of precaution had been carried out, Essex advanced upon Cadiz. The town was fortified on the south by means of a wall running across the island, and from this wall the enemy kept up a troublesome fire upon the English. But it is probable that the wall was enfiladed by the guns of the English ships in the port, and that it could not have been held easily. A body of about five hundred Spaniards outside the wall retired precipitately, and was so closely followed up that the attackers almost succeeded in entering with it. Sir Francis Vere, at the head of a small body, was one of the first to reach the gate; and while he was forcing it, another party, led by some young military officers, scaled the wall. In a few moments the English were in the narrow streets. From the flat roofs of the houses the inhabitants aided those of their friends who still struggled below, by flinging ​down stones, and by firing occasional shots; but the defenders were gradually driven into the market-place, where, at length, the fight ceased. Such of the garrison as retreated to the castle and the townhouse surrendered the next day, promising 520,000 ducats for their lives, and giving forty hostages for the payment of that sum.
The loss of life on the English side was exceedingly small; but Sir John Wingfeild was killed while serving ashore, and Sir Walter Ralegh was wounded.
Immediately after the place had fallen, the generals, by proclamation, ordered that no violence should be offered to unoffending citizens; and that the women, priests, and children should be conveyed across the harbour to Puerto Santa Maria in English vessels. Essex in person superintended the embarkation of the ladies, suffering them to carry off their richest apparel and jewels, and preserving them from all insult.
Ralegh's wound was not serious, and he was at once detached by the Lord High Admiral to proceed with a light squadron to Puerto Reale, to burn such merchantmen as had taken refuge there. The Spaniards offered Howard 2,000,000 ducats if he would stay his hand; but the Lord High Admiral answered that he had cone to burn and not to ransom. The short time spent in negotiation, however, enabled the Duke of Medina Sidonia to remove a certain amount of goods from some of the ships ere they were fired.
The loss to Spain was estimated at 20,000,000 ducats. Besides the merchantmen which were destroyed and the two large galleons which were taken, thirteen men-of-war, eleven ships freighted for the Indies, and thirteen miscellaneous vessels were sunk, burnt, or bilged. About twelve hundred pieces of ordnance were also taken or sunk. Nearly sixty naval and military officers, whose names are given at length by Camden, were knighted in consequence of their behaviour upon the occasion; and Howard of Effingham, for the service, was subsequently created Earl of Nottingham.
Having gained the town, the leaders discussed what they should do with it. Essex desired to retain it, and offered to hold it with four hundred men and three months' provisions. Sir Francis Vere and Admiral Duijvenvoorde were also of opinion that it should be ​garrisoned and kept; but Howard and all the other senior officers were opposed to the project, and anxious to return to England. The place, therefore, was given over to pillage, its fortifications were razed, and many of its principal buildings, the churches excepted, were burnt.
On July 5th, the fleet weighed again and proceeded to Faro in Algarve, a hundred miles to the westward. The town had been deserted, the inhabitants carrying off nearly all their goods, and little spoil beyond the bishop's library was taken.
Essex was not wholly satisfied with what had been done, and suggested sailing to the Azores, and there lying in wait for the home-coming East India carracks. Lord Thomas Howard and Admiral Duijvenvoorde concurred; but all the other officers seem to have been beset by a fear of losing what they had gained, and by a desire to hasten home to enjoy it. Essex thereupon asked that those ships which were short of stores or had many sick on board might be sent to England, together with the land forces, and that he, with two of her majesty's ships and ten other vessels, might be suffered to go to the Azores and look for the carracks. The council would not, however, consent even to this; whereupon Essex insisted upon each member delivering his views in writing, in order that his own attitude might be vindicated.
The sole concession that he succeeded in obtaining was that on the homeward voyage a visit should be paid to Corunna; but neither in Corunna, nor in the neighbouring port of Ferrol, was a single Spanish ship found. Essex, still anxious to effect something more, would have taken Corunna, and attacked such Spanish vessels as were in Santander and San Sebastian. Once more the gallant Duijvenvoorde supported him, and once more the two were overruled. And so the fleet returned to England, with the two galleons, a hundred brass guns, and an immense amount of very valuable miscellaneous booty.
Then followed an amusing and undignified struggle for the plunder, most of the officers protesting that little or none had fallen ​to them, and the queen's commissioners doing their best to secure as much as possible. The queen's anxiety on the subject was probably well reflected in a letter addressed on August 10th from the Council at Greenwich to the joint generals.
In spite of all his efforts to vindicate his conduct, Essex fell into some disfavour at court. Lediard suggests that the uneasiness thus occasioned him may have led him into the extravagant projects which in the end cost him his life. Probably he proved himself at times a difficult colleague of the Lord High Admiral: possibly he often allowed zeal to outrun discretion. But it is abundantly clear that in all he did during the Cadiz expedition he was animated by the best motives, and not by that personal greed which remains a blot upon the record of some of his most noted contemporaries: and the fact that all his proposals for the more complete humiliation of Spain seem to have been supported by Duijvenvoorde, a seaman of experience, is one which speaks very strongly in favour of his general conduct.
In 1596, Cumberland sent his ninth expedition to sea. He first fitted out the Scourge of Malice, obtained the Dreadnought from her majesty, and chartered some small craft. With these he sailed, but the Scourge of Malice was presently disabled in a storm, and the expedition had to put back. He then fitted out a vessel called the Ascension, of 300 tons and thirty-four guns, and dispatched her to cruise under Francis Slingsby. She also was damaged and forced home by a gale, but, sailing again, fought some gallant, though indecisive, actions off Lisbon ere she returned.
The immediate effect of the Cadiz expedition was to stimulate Spain to a fresh effort. Philip lost no time in assembling at Lisbon as many ships as he could collect from all parts of his extensive dominions and in taking up such suitable foreign vessels as lay in his ports. The fleet thus formed proceeded in the spring of 1597 to Ferrol, and there received on board a considerable body of troops and a great number of fugitives from Ireland. The intention seems to have been to land all these forces in Ireland; but soon after the fleet had quitted Ferrol it fell in with such terrible weather, and suffered so severely, that it put back, incapable of prosecuting its ​mission. The attempt is said, by contemporary writers, to have been so secretly and so quickly prepared that the news of its disablement and dispersion actually reached England before the news of its sailing.
The failure, costly though it was, did not deter Philip from at once organising a fresh attempt. He was upon the point of liberating some of his resources by concluding a separate peace with France, which had been the ally of Elizabeth since 1593; there still remained a considerable part of his shattered fleet; there were yet other vessels in his Galician ports; and the state of affairs in Ireland appeared, as before, to invite him thither. This time, however, early news of Philip's intentions reached England, and steps were promptly taken for providing employment for the enemy ere he should be in a condition to sail.
A fleet was fitted out with a view, first, to surprise the Spaniards in Corunna and Ferrol, ad then to seize Terceira or some other island of the Azores, so as to secure a base from which to watch for the home-coming Spanish treasure ships from the Indies. The expedition, known as the Voyage to the Islands, was entrusted to the supreme command of the Earl of Essex, who had as his vice-admiral Lord Thomas Howard, as his rear-admiral, Sir Walter Ralegh, and, as general of his land forces, Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy. Sir Francis Vere went as camp-marshal or, as would now be said, general of a brigade; Sir George Carew as lieutenant of the ordnance, and Sir Christopher Blount as first colonel. Among the volunteers were the Earls of Rutland and Southampton, and Lords Cromwell, Grey de Wilton, and Rich.
Accounts of the expedition have been left by various participants, including Sir Arthur Gorges, Essex, Lord Thomas Howard, Lord Mountjoy, Sir Walter Ralegh, and others whose relations will be found in Purchas's 'Pilgrims,' Sir William Monson, and several more; yet there is some little doubt as to the exact number of her majesty's ships taking part in it, and as to the names of their commanders at different periods. Careful comparison of the lists ​and statements seems to indicate that the naval portion of the fleet was composed and officered as follows: —
| Ships. | Tons. | Guns. | Men. | Commanders. | Commanders. | Military Officers |
| Mere Honour | 800 | 400 | 41 | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | Earl of Essex. | |
| Mere Honour | 800 | 400 | 41 | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | Sir Robt. Mansell, Capt | |
| Due Repulse | 700 | 350 | 50 | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | Lord Thos. Howard, V.-A. | |
| Due Repulse | 700 | 350 | 50 | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | — Middleton, Capt. | |
| Warspite | 600 | 300 | 29 | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | Sir Walter Ralegh, R.-A. | |
| Warspite | 600 | 300 | 29 | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | Sir Arthur Gorges, Capt. | |
| Garland | 700 | 300 | 45 | (?) | (?) | Henry, Earl of Southampton |
| Defiance | 500 | 250 | 46 | Sir Amyas Preston, Capt. | Sir Amyas Preston, Capt. | Lord Mountjoy. |
| Mary Rose | 600 | 250 | 39 | John Wynter, Capt. | John Wynter, Capt. | Sir Fras. Vere. |
| St. Matthew | 1000 | 500 | 48 | (?) | (?) | Sir Geo. Carew |
| St. Andrew | 900 | 400 | 50 | — Throckmorton, Capt. | — Throckmorton, Capt. | |
| Rainbow | 500 | 250 | 26 | Sir Wm. Monson, Capt. | Sir Wm. Monson, Capt. | |
| Bonaventure | 600 | 250 | 47 | Sir Wm. Harvey, Capt. | Sir Wm. Harvey, Capt. | |
| Dreadnought | 400 | 200 | 41 | Sir Wm. Brooke, Capt | Sir Wm. Brooke, Capt | |
| Swiftsure | 400 | 200 | 41 | Sir Gelly Meyrick, Capt. | Sir Gelly Meyrick, Capt. | |
| Antelope | 350 | 160 | 38 | Sir Thos. Vavasour, Capt. | Sir Thos. Vavasour, Capt. | |
| Nonpareil | 500 | 250 | 56 | Sir Rich. Leveson, Capt | Sir Rich. Leveson, Capt | |
| Foresight | 300 | 160 | 37 | Carew Reynell, Capt. | Carew Reynell, Capt. | |
| Tremontana | 140 | 70 | 21 | — Fenner, Capt. | — Fenner, Capt. | |
| Moon | 60 | 40 | 9 | Edwrd. Mitchelburne, Capt. | Edwrd. Mitchelburne, Capt. | |
| Lion | 500 | 250 | 60 | (?) | (?) | |
| Hope | 600 | 250 | 48 | (?) | (?) | |
"Some of her Majesty's small pinnaces" also "attended the fleet."
To the whole force was added a Dutch squadron of ten men-of-war under the command of Admiral van Duijvenvoorde.
The fleet sailed on July 9th, 1597, from Plymouth, but it met ​with bad weather, was obliged to put back and repair damages, and did not sail again until August 17th. Monson says that, before the second departure, five thousand troops were disembarked, and only one thousand veterans remained on board. This step was taken with a view to making the provisions and stores last longer than had been originally intended.
In the Bay more bad weather overtook the expedition. The Mere Honour sprang a dangerous leak; the St. Matthew carried away her mainmast and some yards, and narrowly escaped driving ashore; and the St. Andrew for a time lost sight of the fleet. After the gale had moderated, the course was ill-advisedly steered parallel with the coasts of Asturias and Galicia, so that the ships were sighted from the shore, and warning of their approach was conveyed to the enemy in Corunna.
The English and Dutch stood on and off for some time between Cape Ortegal and Cape de San Adrian in hopes of enticing the Spaniards to come out. When it appeared that they would not do so, Essex was desirous of entering Ferrol and Corunna; but the risk to the ships and to the larger objects of the expedition, and the smallness of the available landing party, seem to have led to the abandonment of the project; and, after a council of war had been held, it was decided to proceed to the Azores. Ralegh, in the Warspite, which had lost her mainyard, was not present when this decision was arrived at, but rightly conjecturing what would be the result of the council, he steered for the Azores as soon as he had made good his damages, and there rejoined the fleet.
There was an arrangement — of which, however, Ralegh may not have been fully apprised — that, of the three generals, Essex should devote his attention to Fayal, Howard to Graciosa, and Ralegh to a third island; this was not adhered to. Ralegh, while watering, was suddenly ordered to proceed to Fayal, there to join Essex for an attack upon the place. He sailed at once; but at Fayal there were no signs of the commander-in-chief. Seeing that the inhabitants were carrying off their effects, and that the works were being rapidly strengthened, Ralegh would have attacked immediately, but was persuaded to wait for four days ere taking action, and then to land only in case the earl should not in the meantime have arrived and assumed the command. Essex did not arrive within the stipulated period, and, at the expiration of it, Ralegh, being denied permission to send his casks ashore for water, landed about four ​miles from the port, drove the Spaniards before him, filled his casks, and seized the town.
Next day Essex entered the harbour. His friends, more than he himself at first, appear to have resented Ralegh's independent action; and the latter was summoned to explain his conduct before a council of war. He showed the necessity of the measure and, persuaded by Howard, made some kind of apology. Gorges, who was Ralegh's captain, suggests that, in spite of this affair, Essex seemed to be satisfied with Sir Walter; but Monson is of opinion that, but for the fact that Ralegh was extremely popular in England and that Essex feared public opinion, the rear-admiral would have been severely punished by his chief. The probability is that the earl originally paid, and would have continued to pay, little attention to the matter had not Ralegh's numerous enemies steadily worked upon the mind of the commander-in-chief. It is certain, however, that in the result, first coldness, and then active hatred arose between the two flag-officers, to the great prejudice of the service.
After the fall of the town, the Spaniards abandoned the only fort remaining in their hands. In it the English found an Englishman and a Dutchman with their throats cut. A few days later the guns of the defences were embarked, the place was burnt, and the united fleet sailed to Graciosa, which submitted. Essex had intended to make this island his headquarters while awaiting the home-coming of the Spanish treasure ships from America; but his pilot, Grove, represented that the harbour was inconvenient for the purpose. Essex, therefore, went to Saint Michael's with the bulk of the fleet, leaving a small squadron, comprising the Mary Rose, under Sir Francis Vere and Sir Nicholas Parker, to cruise between Graciosa and St. George's, and another, including the Garland and the Rainbow, under the Earl of Southampton and Sir William Monson, to cruise to the westward.
This was a most unfortunate arrangement, for no sooner had Essex departed, and the two small squadrons left for their cruising ground, than the treasure squadron of forty sail — seven of which had specie on board — arrived, and was warned off by the inhabitants. It bore away for Terceira and reached that island, with the exception ​of only three vessels, which, losing sight of their consorts, were ultimately made prizes by Essex. At Terceira the Spaniards took refuge in the well-fortified and garrisoned port of Angra.
Vere, Southampton, and Monson, who had followed, endeavoured to enter the harbour in boats by night and to cut the Spanish cables, so that the vessels might drift to seaward; but the enemy was so alert that the project failed. Word was then sent to the commander-in-chief at St. Michael's of what had happened, with an assurance that the Spaniards should not be permitted to put to sea. In due course Essex, with his whole force, reached the scene of action; but, although at first he was strongly in favour of hazarding an attack, a reconnaisance convinced him and most of the other officers that the idea was impracticable; and presently the English fleet returned to St. Michael's, and anchored before Punta Delgada. That place was judged too strong to attempt, and Ralegh was left to hold it in check, while Essex proceeded to Villa Franca, about six miles distant. The town was easily taken, a considerable amount of booty was captured, and for several days the people from the fleet refreshed themselves on shore. While Essex was thus engaged, Ralegh, who awaited his return with great impatience, sighted an East India carrack, and a merchantman from Brazil. The commander of the former ran his ship aground under the town, hurriedly removed as much as possible of her cargo, and then burnt her. The Brazil-man was taken, but, being in a leaky condition, was not manned. Her goods were put on board the English vessels, and she was destroyed.
Very little had been done, and none of the main objects of the expedition had been attained; yet it was decided to return to England, and the fleet accordingly quitted St. Michael's on October 9th. Three days afterwards it was dispersed by a violent storm. The same storm dealt even more hardly with the Spanish fleet, which, taking advantage of the presence of the English at the Azores, had put to sea from Ferrol with the object of effecting a landing in Cornwall and seizing some port there. Several of the ​ships were lost, and one, sorely damaged and very short of provisions, was driven into Dartmouth. The English vessels, on the other hand, all reached port in safety.
Essex and Ralegh were each blamed for the failure by the friends and partisans of the other, and in consequence the quarrel between the two leaders became very bitter. They, however, agreed upon, and both signed, a common account of the fortunes of the expedition. This account ended characteristically as follows: —
Alluding to the dispersion of the Spanish fleet, Monson says: "We must ascribe this victory only to God, for certainly the enemy's designs were perilous, and not diverted by our force." The Spanish design was to seize Falmouth, and to use it as an advanced base for operations against Ireland. England seems to have little realised at the moment the seriousness of the blow which had missed her so narrowly.
A small expedition, which left England in the course of the same year, is of interest, and deserves mention here, on account of its connection with disputes which, in succeeding ages, greatly influenced the relations between Great Britain and France. It was in no sense a naval expedition, but essentially a fishing venture. Nevertheless, like most of the maritime expeditions of the period, it led to some fighting.
Charles Leigh and Abraham van Herwick, merchants of London, fitted out the Hopewell, 120 tons, William Crafton, master, and the Chancewell, 70 tons, Stephen Bennet, master, to fish in the waters of Cape Breton and Newfoundland, where the French already fished for cod. Charles Leigh himself and Stephen van Herwick, a brother of his partner, went as managers of the voyage; and the two vessels, with a pinnace of seven or eight tons, quitted Gravesend on April 8th, 1597. On May 18th, they were upon the banks of Newfoundland. On May 20th, the Hopewell, without Leigh's ​knowledge, fought a French vessel. On June 18th, off Ramea Island, other French ships were encountered, and quarrels arising, were fought with. The English fared ill, and were obliged to retire with the loss of their pinnace and an anchor and cable. Worse still befell on June 23rd, when the Chancewell, which had become separated from her consort, was wrecked on Cape Breton Island. The French pillaged her people, stripping them to their very shirts; but most of the survivors seemed to have gained the Hopewell, which, ere she returned to England, amply avenged the unfortunates by boarding and capturing a French craft of 200 tons, and spoiling her of her fish and oil.
GEORGE CLIFFORD, EARL OF CUMBERLAND, K.G. (From C. Picart's engraving after the picture formerly in the Bodleian.)
The year 1598 witnessed the last and most ambitious of the numerous privateering expeditions of that distinguished maritime adventurer, the Earl of Cumberland. The squadron collected on ​the occasion comprised no fewer than twenty sail of ships, none of which belonged to the navy, and it formed a force more formidable than had ever been assembled by a subject. It sailed from Plymouth on March 6th, 1598. The first intention of the commander-in-chief appears to have been to proceed to the West Indies; but, learning soon after he had put to sea that certain rich Spanish carracks were about to cross the Atlantic in company with twenty merchantmen bound for Brazil, he lay in wait for a time for the convoy. The Spaniards, however, apprised of his presence off their coasts, kept their ships in port; and the Earl's only captures at the beginning of his voyage were a Hamburger, with a miscellaneous cargo of contraband goods, a Frenchman laden with salt, and two Flamands full of corn.
Convinced that the carracks would not venture out while he was in the neighbourhood, Cumberland steered for the Canaries,
| Ships | Commanders | Commanders |
| Scourge of Malice | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | The Earl of Cumberland, "Admiral." |
| Scourge of Malice | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | John Watts. |
| Scourge of Malice | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | (later) James Langton. |
| Merchant Royal | Sir John Berkeley, "Lieut.-General and Vice-Admiral." | Sir John Berkeley, "Lieut.-General and Vice-Admiral." |
| Ascension | Robert Flicke, "Rear-Admiral." | Robert Flicke, "Rear-Admiral." |
| Samson | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | Henry Clifford (died). |
| Samson | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | Christopher Colthurst |
| Alcedo | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | John Ley. |
| Alcedo | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | (later) Thomas Cotch. |
| Consent | Francis Slingsby. | Francis Slingsby. |
| Prosperous | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | James Langton. |
| Prosperous | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | (later) John Watts. |
| Centurion | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | Henry Palmer. |
| Centurion | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | (later) William Palmer. |
| Contance, gallion | Hercules Foljambe. | Hercules Foljambe. |
| Affection | — Fleming. | — Fleming. |
| Guiana | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | Christopher Colthurst. |
| Guiana | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | (later) Gerald Middleton. |
| Scout | Henry Jolliffe. | Henry Jolliffe. |
| Anthony | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | Robert Careless (died). |
| Anthony | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | Andrew Andrews. |
| Pegasus | Edward Goodwin. | Edward Goodwin. |
| Royal Defence | Henry Bromley. | Henry Bromley. |
| Margaret and John | John Dixon. | John Dixon. |
| Barkley Bay | (? later) John Ley. | (? later) John Ley. |
| Old frigate | William Harper | William Harper |
| And two barges for landing troops. |||
Cumberland, with his division, made the best of his way to the Azores, where he hoped to intercept the Spanish Mexico Fleet, or at least some carracks; but he reached Flores only to learn that a few days earlier twenty-nine large Spanish ships had weighed thence. At Flores he was, in course of time, rejoined by Sir John Berkeley, though not until both divisions of the squadron had suffered severely in a storm. The united force sailed again on September 16th, and in the following month reached England without further adventure. The expedition, which must have been a very costly one, does not seem to have materially increased the earl's estate, but it was of undoubted benefit to England, seeing that it greatly annoyed the Spaniards, prevented that year's sailing of their regular carracks for the Indies, and caused the postponement of the return of the Plate Fleet from America. It would probably have been more successful had the earl taken greater pains to keep secret his objects and his movements.
Two non-naval events of considerable importance occurred during 1598, and, since they intimately affected naval policy, deserve mention here. One was the conclusion by England of a new and ​advantageous treaty with the United Provinces of the Netherlands. The other was the death of Elizabeth's life-long enemy, Philip II. of Spain.
Referring to 1599, Sir William Monson says: —
The Spaniards had collected ships and galleys at Corunna. The object of the concentration was supposed to be a descent upon England or Ireland in 1599; but, as the event proved, the preparations were made against the Netherlands. In Ireland, Essex was supposed to be hatching schemes of ambition and revenge. Jealous watch, therefore, had to be kept upon at least two quarters; and, to meet the necessities of the moment, a fleet was mobilised with a rapidity previously unexampled. The work of rigging, victualling, and completely fitting out was accomplished in twelve days. Monson assures us that foreigners declared that "the queen was never more dreaded abroad for anything she ever did." Happily the fleet was not called upon to act, and, after having lain for three weeks or a month in the Downs, was sent peaceably back to its ports; but, both as a demonstration of the perfection to which the organisation of the English navy had attained, and as an exercise in hurried preparation for war, the experiment was well worth the comparatively small sum of money which it cost. In more than one respect it resembled the mobilisation of the Particular Service Squadron in January, 1896. Looking, however, to all the circumstances of the two cases, it must be admitted that the results attained in 1599 were much more remarkable than those attained in 1896. The mobilisation of 1599 seems to have really taken officers, men, and dockyards by surprise. The mobilisation of 1896, on the other hand, had been unofficially prepared for several weeks. Yet the interval between the moment when the formal order went forth from London and the moment when the mobilised ships were fully ready to go anywhere and do anything, was actually as short ​in 1599 as in 1896. The constitution of this memorable Elizabethan fleet is given below.
| SHIP. | Tons. | Men. | Guns. | Commanders. |
| Elizabeth Jonas | 900 | 500 | 56 | Lord Thos. Howard, Admiral. |
| Ark Royal | 800 | 400 | 55 | Sir Walter Ralegh. |
| Triumph | 1000 | 500 | 68 | Sir Fulke Greville. |
| Mere Honour | 800 | 400 | 41 | Sir Henry Palmer. |
| Repuse | 700 | 350 | 50 | Sir Tho. Vavasour. |
| Garland | 700 | 300 | 45 | Sir Wm. Harvey. |
| Defiance | 500 | 250 | 46 | Sir Wm. Monson. |
| Nonpareil | 500 | 250 | 56 | Sir Robt. Crosse. |
| Lion | 500 | 250 | 60 | Sir Richd. Leveson. |
| Rainbow | 500 | 250 | 26 | Sir Alex. Clifford. |
| Hope | 600 | 250 | 48 | Sir John Gilbert. |
| Foresight | 300 | 160 | 37 | Sir Thos. Shirley. |
| Mary Rose | 600 | 250 | 39 | —— Fortescue. |
| Bonaventure | 600 | 250 | 47 | —— Troughton. |
| Crane | 200 | 108 | 24 | —— Jones. |
| Swiftsure | 400 | 200 | 41 | —— Bradgate. |
| Tremontana | 140 | 70 | 21 | —— Slingsby. |
| Advantage | 200 | 102 | 26 | ——White. |
| Quittance | 200 | 108 | 25 | Carew Reynell. |
In 1600, commissioners met at Boulogne to treat for peace between England and Spain. They separated in consequence of disputes concerning precedence, and effected nothing. Elizabeth and her ministers, foreseeing the probability of a lame issue of the sort, and altogether distrustful of Spanish sincerity, meanwhile quietly fitted out the Repulse, Sir Richard Leveson, Admiral of the Narrow Seas, Warspite, Captain Troughton, and Vanguard, Captain Somers, as if intending them to cruise against the Dunquerque corsairs on the westen coasts. When it was no longer doubtful that the Boulogne negotiations were destined to fail, Sir Richard was suddenly ordered to proceed with his little squadron to the Azores, there to lie in wait for, and endeavour to capture, the homeward-bound Spanish carracks and the Mexico fleet.
Spain was equally wary. In view of the failure of negotiations she equipped a squadron of eighteen ships, and sent them also to the islands. The two squadrons heard of, but never sighted, one another; nor did Leveson sight the treasure ships. Having exhausted his supplies, he returned to England. The only good effected by this expedition was the casual relief of some distressed home-coming Dutch East-Indiamen."
The year 1601, which, on February 25th, witnessed the execution of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, saw an attempted invasion of Ireland by a Spanish fleet of forty-eight sail under Don Diego de Borachero. Upon the news of the intended descent reaching England, Loveson was again placed in command of a small squadron and ordered to hasten to the threatened point. The squadron consisted of the Warspite (flag); Garland, Sir Amyas Preston; Defiance, Captain Gore; Swiftsure, Captain Somers; and Crane, Captain Mainwaring.
In Ireland, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, was in rebellion at the head of all the tribes of Ulster. In 1598 he had defeated Bagnall at the Yellow Ford, and had roused Munster; and ever since, without risking a general engagement, he had harassed the English power. The arrival of a strong force of allies from Spain seemed to promise triumph to his cause, provided only that he could join hands with the foreigners.
Leveson was not in time to intercept the Spaniards, the main body of whom effected a landing at Kinsale; but he gallantly entered a bay in which a belated Spanish contingent, under Vice-Admiral Siriaco had anchored, and, after a sharp action, destroyed the whole of that division. Siriaco, who escaped, disguised himself, and returned home in a French ship. The remaining Spaniards, nnder Don Juau d'Aguila, held Kinsale against Lord Mountjoy, who besieged it, until December 24th, when Tyrone, who attempted to succour the place, was defeated; whereupon the invaders surrendered upon condition of being transported to their own country in English ships.
Late in the autumn of the same year an adventurous privateering expedition, under William Parker, of Plymouth, left England to cruise against the Spaniards in the West Indies. It consisted of the Prudence, 100 tons, 130 men, William Parker, master and admiral"; the Pearl, 60 tons, 60 men, Robert Rawlins, master and "vice-admiral"; a pinnace of 20 tons and 18 men; and two little shallops. Among the gentlemen embarked for operations on shore were Edward Giles, Philip Ward,—Fugars,—Ashley, and—Loriman.
Sailing in November, the little squadron was at the beginning ​unfortunate, losing the pinnace and all on board, save three, in a squall. Parker steered for the Cape de Verde Islands, and, upon reaching them, threw a hundred men ashore at St. Vincent, captured the island, and pillaged and burnt the town. Thence he stretched across to the American continent, and attacked La Rancheria, in the small island of Cubagua. Although the Governor of Cumana, with a body of troops, was on the spot and gave the invaders a warm reception, the place was taken. Parker allowed the inhabitants to ransom it for five hundred pounds of pearl. Off Cape de la Vela he fell in with and captured a Portuguese ship of 250 tons, bound from Angola and Congo to Cartagena. Her also he accepted a ransom for.
At Cabecas he transferred a hundred and fifty of his men to the shallops and two small pinnaces, and, proceeding to the Bastimentos, engaged negro guides, with whose assistance he entered the harbour of Puerto Bello on the night of February 7th, 1602. It was moonlight; and the English were hailed by the sentries in the castle of St. Philip, a strong work, mounting thirty-five brass guns. They replied in Spanish, and were ordered to anchor. Parker obeyed, but, an hour later, leaving the pinnaces before the castle, he suddenly landed at Triana with the shallops and thirty men, set the place on fire, and entered Puerto Bello ere the people had fairly recovered from their first confusion. In front of the Royal Treasury he found a body of troops and two brass field-pieces drawn up to receive him. An obstinate fight resulted; and, if Fugars and Loriman, who had been left in the pinnaces, had not opportunely landed with a hundred and twenty fresh men, Parker's little force would have been annihilated. The timely assistance soon brought about the fall of the town, in which the victors found 10,000 ducats in specie, belonging to the King of Spain, and a considerable amount of other money, plate, and merchandise. This Parker divided among his men. Two small vessels which lay in the harbour were taken possession of and retained.
Parker's behaviour, judged by the standard of those rough times, was unusually generous. Because the town was well built, he abstained from burning it; and because he was pleased at having taken so important a place with so small a force, he dismissed all his prisoners, including the Governor, without exacting any ransom. ​After remaining for two days he sailed again, and, after an uneventful voyage, reached Plymouth in due course.
The year 1602, which saw the return of Parker, saw also the setting out of several private voyages which may be briefiy mentioned here. Bartholomew Gosnoll, in a small bark, carried a little party of thirty-two persons to Elizabeth's Island, in 41° 10′ N., on the American coast, and would probably have established a permanent colony there had not dissensions arisen and compelled the return of the expedition. William Mace, of Weymouth, employed by Ralegh, who was uneasy as to the fate of the colonists left in Virginia in 1587, pretended to make search for them, but wasted his time, and came home prematurely. Finally, George Weymouth, employed by the Russia Company, sailed with two fly-boats, one of 70 and one of 60 tons, from Ratcliff, hoping to discover a north-west passage. But, meeting with much ice and fog, his men refused to proceed, and he was obliged to return after an absence of little more than four months.
There were also two purely naval expeditions of considerable importance. Both were fitted out with the object of preventing Spain from again attempting to interfere with the course of affairs in Ireland.
The first consisted of the following vessels:-
| SHIPS. | Tons. | Men. | Guns. | Commanders. |
| Repulse | 700 | 350 | 50 | Sir Richard Leveson, Admiral. |
| Garland | 700 | 300 | 45 | Sir William Monson, V.-Admiral. |
| Defiance | 500 | 250 | 46 | Captain Gore. |
| Mary Rose | 600 | 250 | 39 | Captain Slingsby. |
| Warspite | 600 | 300 | 29 | Captain Somers. |
| Nonpareil | 500 | 250 | 56 | Captain Carew Reynell. |
| Dreadnought | 400 | 200 | 41 | Captain Mainwaring. |
| Adventure | 250 | 120 | 26 | Captain Trevor. |
| A caravel | ? | ? | ? | Captain Sawkell. |
​The mission of this fleet was the observation of the Spanish coasts, and, generally, the doing of as much damage as possible to the enemy in his own waters. Leveson, with five of the ships, sailed on March 19th, 1602. Monson remained to await the arrival of a Dutch contingent of twelve ships, the co-operation of which had been promised; but news reaching England that the Spanish Plate fleet was at Terceira, his departure was hastened, in spite of the fact that he was still only partially manned and provisioned; and he followed his chief on March 26th.
Leveson, with his division, met the Plate fleet soon after it had quitted Terceira, and engaged it; but having only five ships, while the enemy had eight-and-thirty, he could effect nothing, and was, indeed, fortunate in being able to escape capture. Had the Dutch and Monson's division been present with the flag, the result must have been very different; and the failure may undoubtedly be regarded as distinctly due to Dutch remissness. A rendezvous off Lisbon had been arranged between the two English admirals. Monson proceeded thither, and then, after waiting in vain for his chief for a fortnight, cruised to the north-west. He presently met with three ships which Leveson had dispatched to look out for him, and at almost the same time spoke some French and Scots vessels which informed him that five galleons lay in San Lucar ready to sail for the Indies, and that two other galleons had sailed three days earlier, carrying Don Pedro de Valdes, as governor, to Havana.
Taking the three English ships under his orders, Monson steered for the probable course of the San Lucar galleons, and quickly sighted five sail which he at first took to be them. They proved, however, to be English merchantmen coming out of the Straits. Next day he chased a Spanish Indiaman, but although he took her, she led him so far to leeward that during the following night, the galleons passed him in safety. Soon afterwards the two admirals met.
On June 1st, being close to Lisbon, they took two ships from the Levant, bound for the Tagus. While they were examining them, a caravel signalled that she desired to speak. Leveson approached the stranger, and from her learnt of the recent arrival at Cezimbra of a carrack of 1600 tons, richly laden from the East Indies. She also reported that sixteen galleys lay in the same harbour, three of them Portuguese, and the rest about to sail for the coast of Flanders, to ​cruise under Federigo Spinola against the Dutch; and she explained that she had been sent to the admiral by the Nonpareil and Dreadnought, which were at the moment detached.
Leveson at once ordered Monson to rejoin him, and the ships then in company, i.e., the Warspite (flag), Garland, Nonpareil, Dreadnought, Adventure, and the two captured vessels, proceeded off Cezimbra, and that very night exchanged a few gunshot with the galleys there.
Early in the morning of June 2nd, a council of war was summoned on board the commander-in-chief, and after considerable discussion, it was determined to attack next day.
The place and shipping were most advantageously situated for defensive purposes. The town stands at the head of a bay which affords a good anchorage in northerly winds. Before the town, and close to the waters, was a strong and well-armed fort, and upon a hill behind the town was a fortified convent commanding the whole. Immediately under the fort lay the great carrack. Behind a neck of rock on the west side of the bay lay the eleven galleys, so disposed with their sterns foremost, that with their bow guns, of which each had five, they could cover the advancing English, while they were themselves protected by the rock, so long as the enemy remained out of gunshot of the fort and the carrack. In addition the place was full of troops.
On June 3rd, a breeze springing up at about 10 a.m., the admiral weighed, fired a warning gun, and hoisted his flag at the maintop. The vice-admiral hoisted his at the foretop. It had been arranged that Leveson should lead in and anchor as near as possible to the carrack, and that the other vessels following should fight under sail, striking as opportunity might offer and occasion suggest; but this plan was not followed out. Leveson led in as stipulated, but Monson, who entered last, instead of fighting under sail. luffed up as close to the shore as he could, dropped his anchor, and hotly engaged town, fort, carrack and galleys all at once, fighting both broadsides simultaneously, while Leveson, owing to the mismanagement of his master, drifted altogether out of the roadstead, and his ship was unable to enter it again until next day. Leveson in person, however, missed very little of the action, for he shifted his flag to ​the Dreadnought. In the course of the afternoon he went on board the Garland, and publicly embracing Monson, assured him that he had won his chief's heart for ever.
Monson was so placed as to be able to enfilade the galleys, which soon fell into disorder, many of the slaves leaving them and swimming ashore. At 2 p.m. the Dreadnought anchored near him, but the fight went on steadily until 5 p.m., at about which time Monson, who perceived that the two prizes, which had been ordered to run on board the carrack and burn her, were not doing their duty, went to them and made preparations for himself leading them on that service. Leveson, however, had begun to hope that the carrack might be taken, and, following Monson to the prizes, carried him back with him to the Dreadnought to concert measures to that end.
In the result, the English ships were directed to cease firing, and one Captain Sewell, an English prisoner who, in the course of the fight, had escaped from the town, was sent to the carrack to offer terms, and to represent that, the galleys being beaten and the English in possession of the roadstead, further resistance would merely provoke the victors.
The captain of the carrack, Don Diego Lobo, sent representatives on board the Dreadnought to treat, but it appearing that the people in the carrack were not all disposed to surrender, Monson expedited negotiations by going in his own boat and personally arranging matters with Don Diego, who, after some discussion, surrendered his ship. She was worth a million ducats. Of the galleys two were taken and burnt, and all the rest would have shared the same fate had the English had at their disposal boats wherewith to board them. The loss on the side of the victors was but six killed and about as many wounded.
On June 4th, the fleet sailed on its return to England. On the way it fell in with a packet bearing dispatches to the effect that a new English squadron was in readiness to reinforce the one already out, and that the Dutch squadron was at length on its way south. Upon receipt of this news it was decided that Leveson should continue his voyage, and that Monson should return to the Spanish ​coast to assume command of the reinforcing fleet upon its arrival on the station. The Garland being in need of a refit, Monson shifted his flag to the Nonpareil, which was in better condition than the other ships, and in her he parted company and went south again. Very severe weather, however, overtook him, and after it had continued for ten days, he was prevailed on by his people to put the ship before the wind and run for Plymouth. He reached that port in safety, found that the captured carrack had arrived before him, and learnt that the squadron which he had gone back to take charge of had not yet left England.
It should be added here that the nine galleys which had escaped destruction at Cezimbra suhsequently left that port under Federigo Spinola to carry out the object of their original commission, and cruise on the coast of Flanders against the Dutch. On September 23rd, while passing through the strait of Dover, they fell in with a squadron which, under Sir Robert Mansell, was there stationed to intercept them. The English attacked with such success that, of the nine galleys, only the one commanded by Spinola himself got away to Dunquerque, all the others being sunk or driven ashore on the Flanders coast.
No sooner had Monson reached Plymouth than he was sent for by the queen, and entrusted with the command of another squadron, destined to watch the coast of Spain, and especially the harbours of Corunna and Ferrol. As before, the safety of Ireland was the chief object of the government. If Monson could satisfy himself that the Spaniards were not threatening Ireland, he might join the Dutch squadron at a given rendezvous, and act on the Spanish coast according to his discretion; but his first care was to be for Ireland.
He sailed from Plymouth on August 31st, 1602, with the following force (see next page).
Bad weather attended the squadron, which, however, remained off Corunna until Monson had ascertained that the Spanish ships which had been collected there, and which had been suspected to be intended for Ireland, had gone southward to Lisbon, there to join the force under Don Diego de Borachero. Monson also went south, earning by means of the caravel, which he sent inshore for ​intelligence, of the presence on the coast of a Spanish fleet of twenty-four sail; and capturing two French merchant vessels, which he liberated upon receiving from them pledge that they would return home direct instead of proceeding to Lisbon, their port of destination.
| SHIPS. | Tons. | Men. | Guns. | Commanders. |
| Swiftsure | 400 | 200 | 41 | Sir William Monson, Admiral. |
| Mary Rose | 600 | 250 | 39 | Captain Trevor. |
| Dreadnought | 400 | 200 | 41 | Captain Cawfield. |
| Adventure | 250 | 120 | 26 | Captain Norris. |
| Answer | 200 | 108 | 21 | Captain Bradgate. |
| Quittance | 200 | 108 | 25 | Captain Browne. |
| Lion's Whelp | .. | .. | .. | Captain May. |
| Paragon | .. | .. | .. | Captain Jason. |
| A small caravel | .. | .. | .. | Captain Hooper. |
In the course of a chase, Monson, in the Swiftsure, with the Dreadnought in company, was led into Cezimbra, the scene of his exploits earlier in the year. He exchanged shots with the fort, which protected the chase, and while in the roadstead, captured a caravel, which came in unsuspectingly, and which, volunteering information concerning the state of affairs at Lisbon, was allowed to depart again. But he could hear nothing of the Dutch squadron.
Proceeding off Lisbon, which was the appointed rendezvous, he sighted a light on the night of September 26th, and believing it to come from some richly laden vessel bound for the Tagus, chased it. He had with him at the moment, besides his flagship, only the Adventure and the Lion's Whelp. To his astonishment he presently found himself in the midst of the Spanish fleet. The enemy recognised the Adventure, and opened fire on her, wounding some of her men; but had darkness lasted a few hour's longer, the English would have got away without much fighting. Daylight, however, discovered the Swiftsure, Adventure, and Lion's Whelp only a short distance ahead of the Spanish fleet, and the latter gave chase.
Three of the Spaniards, being better sailers than the rest, soon gained upon the English, and threatened the Lion's Whelp; but Monson lay to to await the three, and after a time had the satisfaction of seeing them recalled by their admiral, who stood in with the shore.
​The early autumn was occupied in watching, but in vain, for the home-coming San Domingo convoy. On October 21st, Monson, in the Swiftsure, chased a galleon under the castle of Cape St. Vincent, and gallantly attempted to run alongside and carry her by boarding. He was prevented from doing this by the cowardice or ineptitude of the man at the helm, who bore up at the critical moment; and in the result he found himself exposed to a very heavy fire which, in his own words, "rent his ship so that a team of oxen might have crept through her under the half-deck, and one shot killed seven men." During the fight a Spanish squadron looked on from the westward, and several English men-of-war from the eastward, neither caring to intervene for fear of being hit by friends as well as by foes. Monson, during the night, extricated his ship, and after an ineffectual attempt to reach Terceira, returned to England, dropping anchor in Plymouth Sound on November 24th. The other ships came home independently.
The Dreadnoght and Mary Rose, both very sickly, had returned before the admiral. The Adventure arrived an hour after him, reporting that she had fallen in with the home-coming Brazilian fleet, and had been badly mauled by it, but had taken nothing. The Paragon had captured a rich prize laden with sugar and spices. As for the Qittance, she had pluckily engaged two Dunquerquers, and had borne herself very well with them, but had unhappily lost her captain, Browne, in the action.
This was the last naval expedition of the reign of Elizabeth. That great queen died on March 24th, 1603.
* ↑ This expedition is mentioned by Holinshed.
* ↑ Apparently hired craft.
* ↑ Second son of Robert, 5th and last Lord Poynings under writ of 11 Edw. III. He was a lifelong friend of Henry VII. He died in 14 Hen. VIII. a K.G. One of his natural sons, Thomas, was created Baron Poynings in 1545.
* ↑ 'Fœdera,' xii. 497.
* ↑ At about that time there was in Scots waters a considerable English force under Robert, Lord Willoughby de Broke, including, besides the king's ships Regent, Mary Fortune, and Sweepstake, the hired vessels, Anthony, of Saltash, Henry, of Bristol, Mary Bird, of Bristol, Mary Tower, of Bristol, Andrew, of Plymouth, Michael, of Dartmouth, and a bark of Penzance (Augm. Off. bk. 316), as well as, possibly, the Margaret Bull, Hermitage, Ellen, of Calais, Christopher, of Calais, Mary Hastings, Peter, Anne, of Malden, John, of Hampton, Gregory Ismay, John Castelyn, and numerous transports. 'Nav. Accts. and Invts.,' 1485-88 and 1495-97, pp. xlv., 84-102, 341-343.
* ↑ Sixth Baron Daubeney. He died a K.G. in 1507.
* ↑ 'Fœdera,' xiii. 142.
* ↑ Stowe, 484; Holinshed, ii. 793; Bacon's 'Hist. Henry VII.' i. 350.
* ↑ Holinshed, ii. 802; Hall, 11.
* ↑ Grafton, 958; Cooper, 274; Stowe, 488.
* ↑ Their gun strength, unless the guns were extremely small, must be greatly exaggerated in the ballad, for the tonnage of the vessels was but 120 and 70 respectively.
* ↑ Hall, f. 15; Buchanan, xiii. 424, 425; Leslie, 'De Reb. Gest. Scot.' viii. 355.
* ↑ Surrey, on hearing the complaints, remarked that "The Narrow Seas should not be so infested while he had estate enough to furnish a ship, or a son capable of commanding it." Lloyd's 'State Worthies,' 143.
* ↑ 'Columna Rostrata,' 49.
* ↑ Surrey's words quoted in the note above seem to indicate that he fitted out the vessels.
* ↑ Stowe, 489, says that the Lion struck to Lord Thomas. Herbert's 'Life of Henry VIII.' 7, says that both ships were brought into the Thames on August 2nd, 1511.
* ↑ Lord Edward Howard, second son of the Duke of Norfolk. He had served with Sir Edward Poynings in the expedition against Sluis in 1492. Henry VIII. made him his standard-bearer (Pat. 1 Hen. VIII. p. 1, m. 24). He fell in action, as will be seen. He had married Alice, daughter of William Lovel, Lord Morley.
* ↑ Pat. 4 Hen. VIII. p. 2.
* ↑ Hall, f. 15b; Drummond, 'Hist. of Five Jameses,' 130.
* ↑ Pat. 4 Hen. VIII. p. 2.
* ↑ Hall, 17; Hist. du Roy. de Navarre (Chappuy), 620.
* ↑ Said to have carried 1200 men.
* ↑ The name was amusingly Anglicised as "Sir Piers Morgan."
* ↑ Holinshed, ii. 815; Hall, 21.
* ↑ Sir Thomas Knyvett, of Buckenham, had been made a K.G. in 1509, on the occasion of Henry's coronation. He married Muriel, daughter of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, and widow of John Grey, Lord Lisle.
* ↑ Created Viscount Lisle in 1513, and Duke of Suffolk in 1511. He was also a K.G. He died in 1545.
* ↑ Son of Sir Richard Guildford, of Hemsted, who had been Master of the Ordnance under Henry VII. Sir Henry died a K.G., 23 Henry VIII.
* ↑ Sydney, who was knighted at about this time, became chamberlain and steward to Henry VIII., and died at the end of the reign of Edward VI.
* ↑ 1513, as Daniel and other French historians also do.
* ↑ It is extremely doubtful, however, whether Prégent did join at all that year.
* ↑ This was the view even of Sir Clowdisley Shovell at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
* ↑ Sir John Wallop was made a K.G. in 1544. He died in the fifth year of Edward VI.
* ↑ Sir Walter Devereux, K.G. He was the third Baron Ferrers, and in 1550 was created Viscount Hereford.
* ↑ Son of Sir Thomas Fitz-William, Kt., was knighted after the siege of Tournay, and was wounded off Brest in the action of 1513. In 1536 he was made Lord High Admiral and Earl of Southampton. He died a K.G. in 1543.
* ↑ As noted above, they do not appear to have arrived in 1512.
* ↑ Holinshed, ii. 816.
* ↑ Du Bellay, i.; Herbert, 13; 'Reg. of Garter' (Austis), ii. 275; Dupleix, iii. See also Stowe, Speed, and Godwin.
* ↑ Upon whose letter the above account is chiefly based.
* ↑ Later, Earl of Surrey, was eldest son of the Duke of Norfolk, whom he succeeded. He died 1554, aged 66.
* ↑ On May 4th, 1513.
* ↑ Hall, 24b; Godwin, 12, 13; Stowe, 491.
* ↑ Grafton, 984; Speed, 755.
* ↑ Including, apparently, the ships later taken into the navy, as the Bark of Morlaix, Mary Grace, and Bark of Boulogne. Roy. MSS, 14, Bk. xxii. A.
* ↑ Afterwards knighted. Seems to have been High Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1522 and 1527, and to have died 26 Hen. VIII.
* ↑ Possibly including the one which was added to the navy as the John of Greenwich.
* ↑ Drummond, 180; Buchanan, xiv. 448; Leslie, 'De Reb. Gest. Scot.' ix. 406, 407.
* ↑ He was already a K.G.
* ↑ He assumed office on August 16th, 1536.
* ↑ He assumed office on July 18th, 1540.
* ↑ Speed, 782: Stowe, 585; Leslie, 'De Reb. Gest. Scot.' x. 472. Sir William Wynter was in this fleet.
* ↑ At Leith were taken the Unicorn and Salamander, which were added to the navy.
* ↑ 'Fœdera,' xv. 52; Hall, 258b; Holinshed, ii. 964.
* ↑ S. P. Dom. 1544.
* ↑ S. P. Dom. i. 772.
* ↑ Ib., i. 773.
* ↑ Ib., i. 774.
* ↑ Ib., i. 778. A transport, with 259 out of 300 souls on board, was lost. Another transport, under Sir Henry Seymour, went ashore at Dartmouth, but her people were all saved except three.
* ↑ Pat. Rolls, 36 Hen. VIII. 23, where Seymour is given a grant of land on January 16th, 1545.
* ↑ This distinguished seaman's real name was Antoine Escalin. For some unknown reason, he was nicknamed Polain (young horse) or Le Poulin. He was born about 1498 of poor and humble parents at La Garde, in Dauphiné. He gained his rank of captain in an infantry regiment, and always was known as Captain Polain, even when he had attained the highest commands. (Life by Richer, and by Turpin.)
* ↑ Guérin, ii. 60, 61.
* ↑ Oppenheim, 'Admin. of Royal Navy,' 66, says, referring to this statement, which comes from Ralegh, "There is the great improbability that, after at least fifty years' experience of gunports, they should have been cut so low, since she (the Mary Rose) had been rebuilt in or before 1536. Moreover, Anthony's drawings show them to have been pierced very much higher in other vessels." The 'Life of Sir Peter Carew,' in fact, attributes the disaster to the insubordination and disorder which reigned on board. Yet still, the port-sills may have been low, and even lower than normal, and so may have conduced to the accident. When the Duke of Wellington left Spithead during the Russian war, her lower port-sills, owing to the extra men and stores on board, were little more above water than those of the Mary Rose are alleged to have been.
* ↑ 'Life of Sir Peter Carew' (Maclean), 34.
* ↑ S. P. Dom. i. 815.
* ↑ Sir William Paulet had been created Lord St. John in 1539. In 1545 he was made Lord Steward; in 1550 Earl of Wiltshire, and in 1551 Marquis of Winchester. He died a K.G. in 1572.
* ↑ S. P. Dom. i. 834.
* ↑ Ib., i. 833.
* ↑ S. P. Dom., i. 827, 828.
* ↑ Taken into the navy as the Galley Blancherd.
* ↑ Montluc, i. 237; Hall, 260; Du Bellay, x.
* ↑ Or Pauncy, or Pansy. She was of 450 tons, but her force is unknown.
* ↑ Speed, 804; Holinshed, ii. 980: Buchanan, xv.; Keith, 53.
* ↑ The engagement is often called the battle of Musselburgh. Grafton, 1286; Stowe, 594; Cooper, 338b; Buchanan, xv.; Keith, 54.
* ↑ Here the Mary Willoughby, which had previously been taken by the Scots, was re-taken. Holinshed, 989.
* ↑ Speed, 805; Hulinshed, ii. 990.
* ↑ Cotton MS., Cleop. A. 11; Stowe, 586, 587.
* ↑ This officer, who served with distinction in South America, gave his name to the island and fort of Villegagnon in Rio de Janeiro Harbour.
* ↑ Guérin, ii. 149.
* ↑ Burnet, ii. 71.
* ↑ Natural son of James V., by Lady Margaret Erskine: born 1530; Earl of Murray 1562; Regent 1567; murdered 1570.
* ↑ S. P. MSS. Dom. N. 39.
* ↑ Godwin, 233; Speed, 811; Fox, 'Acts and Monuments,' ii. 671; Holinshed, i. 1055.
* ↑ Edward's Diary; Cotton MS. Nero, C. x. 5.
* ↑ 'Fœdera,' xv. 211; Leonard, ii. 472.
* ↑ Strype, ii. 230; Edward's Journal, 11, 13; Grafton, 1314.
* ↑ Edward's Journal, Mar. 26, 1552; Strype, ii. b. ii. c. x.
* ↑ Ib., 62-66; Strype ii. 332.
* ↑ Journal of P. C. (Haynes), 156; Stowe, 611, 612; Holinshed, ii. 1087; Godwin, 268, 271; Speed, 817.
* ↑ Pat. 1 Mary, 7; 'Fœdera,' xv. 382.
* ↑ Holinshed, ii. 1106; Strype, iii. 59.
* ↑ Both Wynter and Throgmorton nearly suffered for this. The trial is in Holinshed.
* ↑ See also Monson's 'Tracts,' in Churchill's Voyages, 243; Speed, 824; Holinshed, ii. 1118.
* ↑ Brother of Gaspard, the Admiral of France.
* ↑ Grafton, 1354, 1355; Godwin, 330, 331; Daniel, viii. 210; Stowe, 631, 632; Burleigh's Diary (Murdin), 747; Dupleix, iii, 576, 577; Guérin, ii. 174, 175.
* ↑ Grafton, 1357-1359; Godwin, 331, 332; Stowe, 632.
* ↑ Leslie, 'De Reb. Gest. Scot.' x.; Strype, iii. 429; Buchanan, xvi.
* ↑ Grafton, 1363, 1364; Stowe, 633; Godwin, 331; Dupleix, iii. 583, 584; Daniel, viii. 232.
* ↑ Campbell (ed. 1817), i. 407.
* ↑ Strype, Ann. i. 6.
* ↑ Forbes's Coll. S. P. i.; Buchanan, xvi. xvii.; Holinshed, ii. 1184.
* ↑ Treaty of Berwick. 'Fœdera,' xv. 569.
* ↑ 'Fœdera,' xv. 593.
* ↑ This year John Hawkyns made his first voyage to the West Indies. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ The queen's manifesto is given by Stowe.
* ↑ Strype, i. 367; Forbes's Coll. S. P. ii.: Burleigh's Diary (Murdin), 753, 754; Leonard. ii. 571. Eleven small French vessels were taken in the port.
* ↑ Camden, i. 94; Speed, 835; Holinshed, ii. 1196.
* ↑ Stowe, 653.
* ↑ Camden, 'Ann.' i. 98.
* ↑ S. P. (Haynes), 304; S. P. (Forbes), ii. 171: Stowe, 652; Strype, i. 367; Holinshed, ii. 1197.
* ↑ This year John Hawkyns made his second voyage to the West Indies. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ 'Fœdera,' xv. 640.
* ↑ Hakluyt, ii.
* ↑ This year John Hawkyns made his third voyage to the West Indies. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ This year the Russia Company sent agents to Persia.
* ↑ Camden, i. 175; Stowe, 662; Turquet, ii. 1432.
* ↑ Burleigh's Diary (Murdin), 766, 767.
* ↑ S. P. (Murdin), 257, 274; Meteren, 'Hist. des Pays Bas.' iii.
* ↑ Camden, 'Ann.' ii. 220, 221; Hawkyns's 'Observats.' 22.
* ↑ In this year Drake made his first great expedition. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ Camden, ii. 270, 275: Daniel, viii. 750; Stowe, 674.
* ↑ Strype, ii. 171, 172; Holinshed, ii. 1257.
* ↑ In this year John Oxenham made a voyage to the "South Seas." See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ Stowe, 681; Holinshed, ii. 1262; Camden, ii. 303, 304.
* ↑ In 1576 John Barker made a voyage to the West Indies, and Martin Frobiser started on the search for a N.W. passage. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ Drake began his famous voyage round the world in 1577. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ In 1578 Martin Frobiser again attempted a N.W. passage. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ In this year Charles Jackman and Arthur Pett sought a N.W. passage. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ Generally said to have been September 26th.
* ↑ She had, in fact, been so re-named in August, 1578.
* ↑ In 1582 Edward Fenton set out on his voyage to South America, and in 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert set out on his expedition to Newfoundland. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ He was then forty-nine. He had succeeded his father, the first Lord, in 1573.
* ↑ This year Sir Richard Greynvile made a voyage to Virginia. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ 'Fœdera,' xv. 793.
* ↑ This year Drake led an expedition to the West Indies. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ Hakluyt, ii. P. ii. 112. Doubtless by error, the affair is attributed to May 26th, and Philip's commission of embargo, to May 29th, 1585. The latter was, of course, anterior to the former.
* ↑ Hakluyt, ii. P. ii. 285.
* ↑ The year of John Davis's departure to search for a N.W. passage. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ This vessel, which afterwards belonged to Sir Geo. Carew, was re-named Commander.
* ↑ Harris, 'Voyages,' ii. 685; Hakluyt, ii. 769.
* ↑ Hakluyt, i, P. ii. 121.
* ↑ In 1587 Cavendish departed on his voyage round the world. See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ S. P. Dom. ccviii. 77.
* ↑ Letter of Drake to Burghley, April 27th, 1587, in Strype, iii. 451; Monson's 'Tracts,' 170; Camden, 551; Hakluyt, ii. pt. ii. 121; Risdon's 'Survey of Devon,' iii. 261.
* ↑ In this expedition, the Earl accomplished very little, Purchas, iv. 1142; Harris, 'Voyages,' i. 686.
* ↑ Stowe, 752; Camden, iii. 600, 601; Faria y Souza, v. c. 3.
* ↑ Hakluyt, ii. P. ii. 134; Purchas, iv. 914.
* ↑ Strype, iii. 538; Speed, 863.
* ↑ Revenge, Sir Francis Drake; Dreadnought, Capt. Thomas Fenner; Aid, Capt. William Fenner; Nonpareil, Capt. Sackvile; Foresight, Capt. William Wynter, jun.; Swiftsure, Capt. Goring.
* ↑ Monson's 'Nav. Tracts,' 174 (Churchill).
* ↑ Stowe, 757; Ferrara, 'Hist. de España,' xv. s. 16; Strype, iv. 8.
* ↑ Captain Thomas Fenner, of the Dreadnought, was mortally wounded in the attempt on Lisbon.
* ↑ Monson's 'Tracts'; Hakluyt, ii. P. ii. 155; Purchas, iv. 1142; Harris, 'Voyages,' i. 686.
* ↑ Hakluyt, iii. 557.
* ↑ Ib., ii. P. ii 166.
* ↑ Monson's 'Tracts'; Purchas, iv. 1145; Harris, 'Voyages,' i. 686.
* ↑ Defiance, Lord Thomas Howard; Revenge, Sir Richard Greynvile (as vice-admiral); Nonpareil, Sir Edward Denny; Bonaventure, Captain Robert Crosse; Lion, Captain Thomas Fenner; Foresight, Captain Thomas Vavasour; Crane, Captain Duffield.
* ↑ Hakluyt, ii. P. ii. 169; Purchas, iv. 1678. Lord Thomas was second son of the Duke of Norfolk.
* ↑ For accounts of the expedition and fight, see Monson's 'Tracts,' 178, 179 (Churchill); Camden, iii. 637, 638; Ralegh's Report in Hakluyt, ii. 169; Carew's 'Surv. of Cornwall,' 62; Hawkyns's 'Observats.,' 10.
* ↑ Hakluyt, pt. iii. 565. The Content's master was Nicholas Liste.
* ↑ Hakluyt, ii. pt. ii. 168.
* ↑ Ib., ii. pt. ii. p. 194; Monson's 'Tracts'; Camden's 'Annales'; Oldys's 'Life of Ralegh,' 63-65.
* ↑ Sir John Burgh, a descendant of the famous Hubert de Burgh, was third son of William, fifth Baron de Burgh. He was killed in action on March 7th, 1595, being then in his fifty-third year, and lies buried in Westminster Abbey.
* ↑ Judging from the result, this intelligence was false.
* ↑ This was the fifth of the earl's expeditions. See below.
* ↑ Some accounts say Providence; but Crosse's ship was the Foresight.
* ↑ Among these seven decks were, of course, included the numerous superimposed short decks, forming the lofty stern-castle or poop.
* ↑ Hakluyt, iii. 567, 570; ii., pt. ii. 193; Lansdowne MSS. 70, f. 231.
* ↑ See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ Ib.
* ↑ Ib.
* ↑ Purchas, iv. 1147; Monson's 'Tracts'; Harris, 'Voyages,' i. 687.
* ↑ Vanguard, 500 tons, Sir Martin Frobiser; Rainbow, 500 tons, Captain Thomas Fenner; Dreadnought, 400 tons, Captain Alexander Clifford; and Quittance, 200 tons, Captain Savile.
* ↑ Dying in January, 1595.
* ↑ Churchyard's 'Memorable Service of Sir J. Norreys,' 135-141; Fuller's 'Yorkshire Worthies,' 202; Monson's 'Tracts,' 182; Stowe, 808; Camden's 'Annales,' 680.
* ↑ Laughton's Introd. to Span. Armada Papers, p. lxxvi.
* ↑ Purchas, iv. 1147; Harris, 'Voyages,' i. 688. See also Hakluyt.
* ↑ For Lancaster's and Dudley's voyages of this year, see Chap. XVI.
* ↑ Camden, iii. 697; Carew's 'Survey of Cornwall,' 115.
* ↑ See Chap. XVI.
* ↑ Sir R. Hawkyns's 'Observations on Voyage to the South Seas,' 133.
* ↑ This was also the year of the departure of Sir Walter Ralegh for Guiana (see Chap. XVI.).
* ↑ On October 30th.
* ↑ Hakluyt, iii. 583. See also Purchas's 'Pilgrims,' 1133; Monson, 183, attributes Sir John's death to causes which could not have influenced it.
* ↑ Monson says that Drake "grew melancholy upon this disappointment, and suddenly, and, I hope, naturally, died." He seems to have suspected a violent death, but upon what grounds is unknown.
* ↑ Monson's 'Tracts,' 183, 371; letter by "R. M." in Purchas's 'Pilgrims,' iv. 1185; Camden, 700; Stowe, 807. For a discussion of Hawkyns's public character, see Oppenheim, 'Admin. of Royal Navy,' App. C. (p. 392).
* ↑ 'Relation of a Voyage to the W. Indies,' 58; Fuller's 'Holy State,' 130; Stowe, 808; Camden, 700; 'English Hero,' 207; Monson's 'Tracts,' 399; Purchas's 'Pilgrims,' vi. 1185; Holinshed, ii. 1567; Hakluyt, iii. 583.
* ↑ The year of Keymis's Voyage to Guiana, of Shirley's expedition to the West Indies, and of Parker's cruise to the West Indies, see Chap. XVI.
* ↑ Hakluyt, iii. 578.
* ↑ Monson; Purchas, iv. 1148; Harris, 'Voyages,' i. 688.
* ↑ Cal. of Hatfield MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), pt. vi.
* ↑ For the account of the expedition, Monson, Hakluyt, Purchas, Camden, the Appendix to Harris's Collection, Speed, Stow, and MSS. in the Cottonian Library, as well as various State Papers have been consulted.
* ↑ Son of Geoffrey de Vere, and grandson of the fifteenth Earl of Oxford. He wrote 'The Commentaries of Sir F. Vere' (published in 1657). Dying in 1608, he was buried at Westminster.
* ↑ Son of Robert, Earl of Leicester, by Douglas Howard, sister of the Lord High Admiral. He married as his third wife a daughter of Sir Robert Southwell. His great nautical work, 'L'Arcano del Mare,' was written while he was serving the Grand Duke of Tuscany, with whom he took refuge upon failing to establish his legitimacy, his father having denied the marriage.
* ↑ Created Baron Carew, of Clopton, 1605, and later Earl of Totness; author of 'Hibernia Pacata.' He died Master of the Ordnance, March 27th, 1629.
* ↑ Knighted for this service.
* ↑ There were originally to be only twelve ships of her majesty, twelve ships of the City, and twenty ships of the Netherlands; but the force was considerably increased. Cal. of Hatfield MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), pt. vi.
* ↑ 'Nederlandsche Zeewesen,' i. 143.
* ↑ For the first time, also, the Dutch fleet seems to have carried a regular national flag to sea. A Resolution of the States-General of April 5th, 1596, directed that the arms of the States, a lion and arrows, should be worn on the colours, which were a tricolour of orange, white and blue. The flag was afterwards changed, red being substituted for orange on account of its superior visibility, and the arms being omitted. In Tromp's time, the orange (or red), white and blue flag was known as the Prince's flag, since it represented the colours of the Prince of Orange.
* ↑ This arrangement foreshadows the appointment under the Commonwealth of 'Admirals and Generals at Sea,' and, to some extent, the later practice of giving naval officers concurrent commissions in the Marines.
* ↑ Cotton MSS., Otho E. ix.
* ↑ The generals had power to add to this Council.
* ↑ Anthony Ashley, grandfather of the first Earl of Shaftesbury, became Secretary to the Privy Council under James I., was made a baronet in 1622, and died in 1628.
* ↑ It is noteworthy that in all the documents relating to this expedition, Essex is given precedence over Howard, although the latter was Lord High Admiral, and the former was new to naval command. The navy was not yet recognised as the senior service.
* ↑ It is probable that these were the three vessels belonging to the Lord High Admiral. A Lion's Whelp was bought from him for the navy in 1601, Pipe Off. Accts. 2239.
* ↑ Richard Leveson, of Lilleshall, born 1570, served as volunteer in the Ark against the Armada, and was knighted for his service in the Cadiz expedition. He died in 1605, Admiral of the Narrow Seas and Vice-Admiral of England. He had married in 1587 Margaret, a daughter of Lord Howard of Effingham. He lies buried at Wolverhampton.
* ↑ Second son of the sixth Lord Mountjoy, born 1563. He had been knighted in 1587, and had succeeded his elder brother in 1594. In 1603 he was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and created Earl of Devonshire. He died in 1606. But in some accounts it is said that not Lord Mountjoy, but Sir Christopher Blount was with the advanced squadron.
* ↑ Who, as the Mere Honour drew too much water, went on board the Nonpareil.
* ↑ Monson says that Ralegh, having entered, anchored out of gunshot of the Spaniards, and urged lack of water as an excuse for not going farther in; and that not until the Rainbow had passed him did Ralegh weigh and proceed.
* ↑ Monson says that the fleeing ships broke through the bridge itself.
* ↑ It did not wholly cease until 4 P.M.
* ↑ Created Baron Gerard in 1603. He was at the time a colonel of the land forces. He died in 1618. It may be of interest to add that he returned home in the St. Matthew.
* ↑ The landing-place, according to Monson, was commanded by Puntal Fort, but the garrison promptly abandoned that work. Monson also declares that Essex landed without Howard's privity.
* ↑ Stow says 620,000.
* ↑ Hakluyt and Harris say 2,500,000.
* ↑ This booty fell to Essex, who succeeded in retaining it in spite of Elizabeth's efforts to secure it. He afterwards gave part of it to Sir Thomas Bodley, and so it became the nucleus of the Bodleian Library.
* ↑ For Essex's defence of his conduct, see Cotton MSS. Julius, F. vi. 103, fol. 271.
* ↑ Reaching Plymouth on August 8th, 1696. Essex, who convoyed the St. Andrew, and a fly-boat laden with ordnance, arrived two days later.
* ↑ Printed at length in Lediard, 336, 337.
* ↑ He was knighted for his services on the occasion. Camden, iii, 737, 738.
* ↑ Purchas, iv. 1148.
* ↑ Thirty-six sail were reported to have been lost in this storm.
* ↑ Edward Cromwell, third Baron. He joined in Essex's rebellion, but was pardoned, and lived till 1607.
* ↑ Thomas Grey, fifteenth Baron Grey de Wilton. Involved in Ralegh's conspiracy, he died in the Tower in 1614.
* ↑ Robert Rich, third Baron. In 1618 he was created Earl of Warwick, and in the same year died.
* ↑ 'Pilgrims,' iv. 1035.
* ↑ Essex afterwards shifted his flag to the Due Repulse.
* ↑ Howard afterwards shifted his flag to the Lion, which went out with stores after the main fleet had sailed.
* ↑ Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, seems to have gone as a military volunteer, although in Monson's and Gorges's lists he appears as commanding the Garland. He was attacked and imprisoned for complicity with Essex, but re-created Earl in 1603, and made a K.G. He died in 1624.
* ↑ In Gorges's and Monson's lists, Carew figures as commanding the St. Matthew. He may have held naval as well as military command.
* ↑ Son of Rowland Meyrick, Bp. of Bangor, 1559-63; had been knighted for services at Cadiz. He was executed in 1600 for complicity with Essex.
* ↑ Sir John Gilbert, who did not sail, seems to have been originally appointed to the Antelope.
* ↑ Sir Thos. Vavasour seems to have been originally appointed to the Nonpareil.
* ↑ Fifth son of Rich. Reynell, of East Ogwell, was knighted in 1599 for services in Ireland, and died in 1624.
* ↑ Sir Rich. Leveson seems to have been originally appointed to the Hope.
* ↑ Account of Gorges.
* ↑ Monson says that Essex quitted Graciosa in consequence of having received reports of Spanish vessels, supposed to be the treasure ships, being in the neighbourhood, and that he himself warned Essex that the Spaniards would go to Angra.
* ↑ A "great ship" belonging to the Governor of Havana, a frigate of the King of Spain, and a frigate belonging to a private person. — Essex's account. The largest was of 400 tons' burden, and very rich. Monson says that Southampton, in addition, sank a pinnace by gunshot.
* ↑ The idea had been to march overland and attack Punta Delgada from the rear, but the difficult nature of the country caused the relinquishment of the project. — Monson.
* ↑ Hakluyt, iii. 195.
* ↑ Left with Sir John Berkeley at San Juan de Puerto Rico.
* ↑ Lost, returning, on the Goodwin Sands.
* ↑ Lost, returning, off Ushant.
* ↑ One barge was sunk at Puerto Rico, the other was wrecked on the Bermudas.
* ↑ Here were taken a French and a Spanish vessel, which were added to the squadron.
* ↑ Purchas, iv. 1150; Monson's Tracts; Harris's Coll. i. 688.
* ↑ 'Fœdera,' xvi. 341.
* ↑ On September, 13th, the anniversary of the birth of his rival Burghley, who had predeceased him on August 15th.
* ↑ "White" in the printed 'Tracts'; but "Hore" (? Gore) in MS. in the Cott. MSS.
* ↑ Monson's 'Tracts,' and MS. in Cott. Library.
* ↑ And which also witnessed Lancaster's voyage to the East Indies, for which see Chap. XVI.
* ↑ Monson's 'Tracts,' and MS. in Cott. Library.
* ↑ The Governor, Don Pedro Melendez, had fought gallantly, and received eleven wounds.
* ↑ Purchas's 'Pilgrims,' iv. 1243; Harris's 'Voyages,' i. 747; 'Life of Parker,' in supp. to Prince's 'Worthies of Devon.'
* ↑ Harris's 'Voyages,' i. 816; Purchas, iv. 1647; 'Smith's 'Hist. of Virginia.'
* ↑ Harris's 'Voyages,' i. 587.
* ↑ These were fallen in with one night by the Warspite, but escaped her.
* ↑ The Repulse, being leaky, had been sent home, and Laveson had shifted his flag to the Warspite. As her master proved incompetent , he later shifted it to the Dreadnought.
* ↑ Her name was São Valentino. She belonged to the vice-royalty of Portugal, and had lately come from the Indies, wintering by the way at Mozambique.
* ↑ The Trinidade and Occasion.
* ↑ The Dutch squadron passed the fleet unseen in the course of the following night.
* ↑ Monson's 'Tracts,' and MS. in the Cott. Library; Colliber's 'Colunma Rostrata'; Camden.
* ↑ This is the account of Colliber and others. Camden says that Spinola sailed with six galleys, and lost two sunk and one taken in a conflict with an Anglo-Dutch force in the Channel. With the other three he escaped to Sluis.
* ↑ Bought from the Lord High Admiral, 1601. Pipe Office Accounts, 2239.
* ↑ A merchantman.
* ↑ The other ships had parted company in a storm four nights earlier.
* ↑ Monson's 'Tracts,' and MS. in Cott. Library.