Part 62 (1/2)
Howard had got to sea, and was cruising all the stormy month of March in the Channel with his little unprepared squadron; expecting at any moment--such was the profound darkness which, enveloped the world at that day--that the sails of the Armada might appear in the offing. He made a visit to the Dutch coast, and was delighted with the enthusiasm with which he was received. Five thousand people a day came on board his s.h.i.+ps, full of congratulation and delight; and he informed the Queen that she was not more a.s.sured of the Isle of Sheppey than of Walcheren.
Nevertheless time wore on, and both the army and navy of England were quite unprepared, and the Queen was more reluctant than ever to incur the expense necessary to the defence of her kingdom. At least one of those galleys, which, as Howard bitterly complained, seemed destined to defend Chatham Church, was importunately demanded; but it was already Easter-Day (17th April), and she was demanded in vain. ”Lord! when should she serve,” said the Admiral, ”if not at such a time as this? Either she is fit now to serve, or fit for the fire. I hope never in my time to see so great a cause for her to be used. I dare say her Majesty will look that men should fight for her, and I know they will at this time. The King of Spain doth not keep any s.h.i.+p at home, either of his own or any other, that he can get for money. Well, well, I must pray heartily for peace,”
said Howard with increasing spleen, ”for I see the support of an honourable, war will never appear. Sparing and war have no affinity together.”
In truth Elizabeth's most faithful subjects were appalled at the ruin which she seemed by her mistaken policy to be rendering inevitable. ”I am sorry,” said the Admiral, ”that her Majesty is so careless of this most dangerous time. I fear me much, and with grief I think it, that she relieth on a hope that will deceive her, and greatly endanger her, and then it will not be her money nor her jewels that will help; for as they will do good in time, so they will help nothing for the redeeming of time.”
The preparations on sh.o.r.e were even more dilatory than those on the sea.
We have seen that the Duke of Parma, once landed, expected to march directly upon London; and it was notorious that there were no fortresses to oppose a march of the first general in Europe and his veterans upon that unprotected and wealthy metropolis. An army had been enrolled--a force of 86,016 foot, and 13,831 cavalry; but it was an army on paper merely. Even of the 86,000, only 48,000 were set down as trained; and it is certain that the training had been of the most meagre and unsatisfactory description. Leicester was to be commander-in-chief; but we have already seen that n.o.bleman measuring himself, not much to his advantage, with Alexander Farnese, in the Isle of Bommel, on the sands of Blankenburg, and at the gates of Sluys. His army was to consist of 27,000 infantry, and 2000 horse; yet at midsummer it had not reached half that number. Lord Chamberlain Hunsdon was to protect the Queen's person with another army of 36,000; but this force, was purely an imaginary one; and the lord-lieutenant of each county was to do his best with the militia.
But men were perpetually escaping out of the general service, in order to make themselves retainers for private n.o.blemen, and be kept at their expense. ”You shall hardly believe,” said Leicester, ”how many new liveries be gotten within these six weeks, and no man fears the penalty.
It would be better that every n.o.bleman did as Lord Dacres, than to take away from the princ.i.p.al service such as are set down to serve.”
Of enthusiasm and courage, then, there was enough, while of drill and discipline, of powder and shot, there was a deficiency. No braver or more competent soldier could be found than Sir Edward Stanley--the man whom we have seen in his yellow jerkin, helping himself into Fort Zutphen with the Spanish soldier's pike--and yet Sir Edward Stanley gave but a sorry account of the choicest soldiers of Chester and Lancas.h.i.+re, whom he had been sent to inspect. ”I find them not,” he said, ”according to your expectation, nor mine own liking. They were appointed two years past to have been trained six days by the year or more, at the discretion of the muster-master, but, as yet, they have not been trained one day, so that they have benefited nothing, nor yet know their leaders. There is now promise of amendment, which, I doubt, will be very slow, in respect to my Lord Derby's absence.”
My Lord Derby was at that moment, and for many months afterwards, a.s.sisting Valentine Dale in his cla.s.sical prolusions on the sands of Bourbourg. He had better have been mustering the trainbands of Lancas.h.i.+re. There was a general indisposition in the rural districts to expend money and time in military business, until the necessity should become imperative. Professional soldiers complained bitterly of the canker of a long peace. ”For our long quietness, which it hath pleased G.o.d to send us,” said Stanley, ”they think their money very ill bestowed which they expend on armour or weapon, for that they be in hope they shall never have occasion to use it, so they may pa.s.s muster, as they have done heretofore. I want greatly powder, for there is little or none at all.”
The day was fast approaching when all the power in England would be too little for the demand. But matters had not very much mended even at midsummer. It is true that Leicester, who was apt to be sanguine-particularly in matters under his immediate control--spoke of the handful of recruits a.s.sembled at his camp in Ess.e.x, as ”soldiers of a year's experience, rather than a month's camping;” but in this opinion he differed from many competent authorities, and was somewhat in contradiction to himself. Nevertheless he was glad that the Queen had determined to visit him, and encourage his soldiers.
”I have received in secret,” he said, ”those news that please me, that your Majesty doth intend to behold the poor and bare company that lie here in the field, most willingly to serve you, yea, most ready to die for you. You shall, dear Lady, behold as goodly, loyal, and as able men as any prince Christian can show you, and yet but a handful of your own, in comparison of the rest you have. What comfort not only these shall receive who shall be the happiest to behold yourself I cannot express; but a.s.suredly it will give no small comfort to the rest, that shall be overs.h.i.+ned with the beams of so gracious and princely a party, for what your royal Majesty shall do to these will be accepted as done to all.
Good sweet Queen, alter not your purpose, if G.o.d give you health. It will be your pain for the time, but your pleasure to behold such people. And surely the place must content you, being as fair a soil and as goodly a prospect as may be seen or found, as this extreme weather hath made trial, which doth us little annoyance, it is so firm and dry a ground.
Your usher also liketh your lodging--a proper, secret, cleanly house.
Your camp is a little mile off, and your person will be as sure as at St.
James's, for my life.”
But notwithstanding this cheerful view of the position expressed by the commander-in-chief, the month of July had pa.s.sed, and the early days of August had already arrived; and yet the camp was not formed, nor anything more than that mere handful of troops mustered about Tilbury, to defend the road from Dover to London. The army at Tilbury never, exceeded sixteen or seventeen thousand men.
The whole royal navy-numbering about thirty-four vessels in all--of different sizes, ranging from 1100 and 1000 tons to 30, had at last been got ready for sea. Its aggregate tonnage was 11,820; not half so much as at the present moment--in the case of one marvellous merchant-steamer--floats upon a single keel.
These vessels carried. 837 guns and 6279 men. But the navy was reinforced by the patriotism and liberality of English merchants and private gentlemen. The city of London having been requested to furnish 15 s.h.i.+ps of war and 5000 men, asked two days for deliberation, and then gave 30 s.h.i.+ps and 10,000 men of which number 2710 were seamen. Other cities, particularly Plymouth, came forward with proportionate liberality, and private individuals, n.o.bles, merchants, and men of humblest rank, were enthusiastic in volunteering into the naval service, to risk property and life in defence of the country. By midsummer there had been a total force of 197 vessels manned, and partially equipped, with an aggregate of 29,744 tons, and 15,785 seamen. Of this fleet a very large number were mere coasters of less than 100 tons each; scarcely ten s.h.i.+ps were above 500, and but one above 1000 tons--the Triumph, Captain Frobisher, of 1100 tons, 42 guns, and 500 sailors.
Lord Howard of Effingham, Lord High-Admiral of England, distinguished for his martial character, public spirit, and admirable temper, rather than for experience or skill as a seaman, took command of the whole fleet, in his ”little odd s.h.i.+p for all conditions,” the Ark-Royal, of 800 tons, 425 sailors, and 55 guns.
Next in rank was Vice-Admiral Drake, in the Revenge, of 500 tons, 250 men and 40 guns. Lord Henry Seymour, in the Rainbow, of precisely the same size and strength, commanded the inner squadron, which cruised in the neighbourhood of the French and Flemish coast.
The Hollanders and Zeelanders had undertaken to blockade the Duke of Parma still more closely, and pledged themselves that he should never venture to show himself upon the open sea at all. The mouth of the Scheldt, and the dangerous shallows off the coast of Newport and Dunkirk, swarmed with their determined and well-seasoned craft, from the flybooter or filibuster of the rivers, to the larger armed vessels, built to confront every danger, and to deal with any adversary.
Farnese, on his part, within that well-guarded territory, had, for months long, scarcely slackened in his preparations, day or night. Whole forests had been felled in the land of Waas to furnish him with transports and gun-boats, and with such rapidity, that--according to his enthusiastic historiographer--each tree seemed by magic to metamorphose itself into a vessel at the word of command. s.h.i.+pbuilders, pilots, and seamen, were brought from the Baltic, from Hamburgh, from Genoa. The whole surface of the obedient Netherlands, whence wholesome industry had long been banished, was now the scene of a prodigious baleful activity. Portable bridges for fording the rivers of England, stockades for entrenchments, rafts and oars, were provided in vast numbers, and Alexander dug ca.n.a.ls and widened natural streams to facilitate his operations. These wretched Provinces, crippled, impoverished, languis.h.i.+ng for peace, were forced to contribute out of their poverty, and to find strength even in their exhaustion, to furnish the machinery for destroying their own countrymen, and for hurling to perdition their most healthful neighbour.
And this approaching destruction of England--now generally believed in--was like the sound of a trumpet throughout Catholic Europe. Scions of royal houses, grandees of azure blood, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Philip II., the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Savoy, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Medici, the Margrave of Burghaut, the Archduke Charles, nephew of the Emperor, the Princes of Ascoli and of Melfi, the Prince of Morocco, and others of ill.u.s.trious name, with many a n.o.ble English traitor, like Paget, and Westmoreland, and Stanley, all hurried to the camp of Farnese, as to some famous tournament, in which it was a disgrace to chivalry if their names were not enrolled. The roads were trampled with levies of fresh troops from Spain, Naples, Corsica, the States of the Church, the Milanese, Germany, Burgundy.
Blas Capizucca was sent in person to conduct reinforcements from the north of Italy. The famous Terzio of Naples, under Carlos Pinelo, arrived 3500 strong--the most splendid regiment ever known in the history of war.
Every man had an engraved corslet and musket-barrel, and there were many who wore gilded armour, while their waving plumes and festive caparisons made them look like holiday-makers, rather than real campaigners, in the eyes of the inhabitants of the various cities through which their road led them to Flanders. By the end of April the Duke of Parma saw himself at the head of 60,000 men, at a monthly expense of 454,315 crowns or dollars. Yet so rapid was the progress of disease--incident to northern climates--among those southern soldiers, that we shall find the number woefully diminished before they were likely to set foot upon the English sh.o.r.e.
Thus great preparations, simultaneously with pompous negotiations, had been going forward month after month, in England, Holland, Flanders.
Nevertheless, winter, spring, two-thirds of summer, had pa.s.sed away, and on the 29th July, 1588, there remained the same sickening uncertainty, which was the atmosphere in which the nations had existed for a twelvemonth.