But how long was all this to last? How long were loyal citizens to feel that they were living over a loaded mine?—throughout their own country, throughout the Continent, at Rome and at Madrid, at Brussels and at Paris, a legion of conspirators were driving their shafts under the English commonwealth. The Queen might be indifferent to her own danger, but on the Queen's life hung the peace of the whole realm. A stroke of a poniard, a touch of a trigger, and swords would be flying from their scabbards in every county; England would become, like France, one wild scene of anarchy and civil war. No successor had been named. The Queen refused to hear a successor declared. Mary Stuart's hand had been in every plot since she crossed the Border. Twice the House of Commons had petitioned for her execution. Elizabeth would neither touch her life nor allow her hopes of the crown to be taken from her. The Bond of Association was but a remedy of despair, and the Act of Parliament would have passed for little in the tempest which would immediately rise. The agony reached a height when the fatal news came from the Netherlands that there at last assassination had done its work. The Prince of Orange, after many failures, had been finished, and a libel was found in the Palace at Westminster exhorting the ladies of the household to provide a Judith among themselves to rid the world of the English Holofernes.

One part of Elizabeth's subjects, at any rate, were not disposed to sit down in patience under the eternal nightmare. From Spain was to come the army of deliverance for which the Jesuits were so passionately longing. To the Spaniards the Pope was looking for the execution of the Bull of Deposition. Father Parsons had left out of his estimate the Protestant adventurers of London and Plymouth, who, besides their creed and their patriotism, had their private wrongs to revenge. Philip might talk of peace, and perhaps in weariness might at times seriously wish for it; but between the Englishmen whose life was on the ocean and the Spanish Inquisition, which had burned so many of them, there was no peace possible. To them, Spain was the natural enemy. Among the daring spirits who had sailed with Drake round the globe, who had waylaid the Spanish gold ships, and startled the world with their exploits, the joy of whose lives had been to fight Spaniards wherever they could meet with them, there was but one wish—for an honest open war. The great galleons were to them no objects of terror. The Spanish naval power seemed to them a 'Colossus stuffed with clouts.' They were Protestants all of them, but their theology was rather practical than speculative. If Italians and Spaniards chose to believe in the Mass, it was not any affair of theirs. Their quarrel was with the insolent pretence of Catholics to force their creed on others with sword and cannon. The spirit which was working in them was the genius of freedom. On their own element they felt that they could be the spiritual tyrants' masters. But as things were going, rebellion was likely to break out at home; their homesteads might be burning, their country overrun with the Prince of Parma's army, the Inquisition at their own doors, and a Catholic sovereign bringing back the fagots of Smithfield.

The Reformation at its origin was no introduction of novel heresies. It was a revolt of the laity of Europe against the profligacy and avarice of the clergy. The popes and cardinals pretended to be the representatives of Heaven. When called to account for abuse of their powers, they had behaved precisely as mere corrupt human kings and aristocracies behave. They had intrigued; they had excommunicated; they had set nation against nation, sovereigns against their subjects; they had encouraged assassination; they had made themselves infamous by horrid massacres, and had taught one half of foolish Christendom to hate the other. The hearts of the poor English seamen whose comrades had been burnt at Seville to make a Spanish holiday, thrilled with a sacred determination to end such scenes. The purpose that was in them broke into a wild war-music, as the wind harp swells and screams under the breath of the storm. I found in the Record Office an unsigned letter of some inspired old sea-dog, written in a bold round hand and addressed to Elizabeth. The ships' companies which in summer served in Philip's men-of-war went in winter in thousands to catch cod on the Banks of Newfoundland. 'Give me five vessels,' the writer said, 'and I will go out and sink them all, and the galleons shall rot in Cadiz Harbour for want of hands to sail them. But decide, Madam, and decide quickly. Time flies, and will not return. The wings of man's life are plumed with the feathers of death.'

The Queen did not decide. The five ships were not sent, and the poor Castilian sailors caught their cod in peace. But in spite of herself Elizabeth was driven forward by the tendencies of things. The death of the Prince of Orange left the States without a Government. The Prince of Parma was pressing them hard. Without a leader they were lost. They offered themselves to Elizabeth, to be incorporated in the English Empire. They said that if she refused they must either submit to Spain or become provinces of France. The Netherlands, whether Spanish or French, would be equally dangerous to England. The Netherlands once brought back under the Pope, England's turn would come next; while to accept the proposal meant instant and desperate war, both with France and Spain too—for France would never allow England again to gain a foot on the Continent. Elizabeth knew not what to do. She would and she would not. She did not accept; she did not refuse. It was neither No nor Yes. Philip, who was as fond of indirect ways as herself, proposed to quicken her irresolution.

The harvest had failed in Galicia, and the population were starving. England grew more corn than she wanted, and, under a special promise that the crews should not be molested, a fleet of corn-traders had gone with cargoes of grain to Coruna, Bilbao, and Santander. The King of Spain, on hearing that Elizabeth was treating with the States, issued a sudden order to seize the vessels, confiscate the cargoes, and imprison the men. The order was executed. One English ship only was lucky enough to escape by the adroitness of her commander. The Primrose, of London, lay in Bilbao Roads with a captain and fifteen hands. The mayor, on receiving the order, came on board to look over the ship. He then went on shore for a sufficient force to carry out the seizure. After he was gone the captain heard of the fate which was intended for him. The mayor returned with two boatloads of soldiers, stepped up the ladder, touched the captain on the shoulder, and told him he was a prisoner. The Englishmen snatched pike and cutlass, pistol and battleaxe, killed seven or eight of the Spanish boarders, threw the rest overboard, and flung stones on them as they scrambled into their boats. The mayor, who had fallen into the sea, caught a rope and was hauled up when the fight was over. The cable was cut, the sails hoisted, and in a few minutes the Primrose was under way for England, with the mayor of Bilbao below the hatches. No second vessel got away. If Philip had meant to frighten Elizabeth he could not have taken a worse means of doing it, for he had exasperated that particular part of the English population which was least afraid of him. He had broken faith besides, and had seized some hundreds of merchants and sailors who had gone merely to relieve Spanish distress. Elizabeth, as usual, would not act herself. She sent no ships from her own navy to demand reparation; but she gave the adventurers a free hand. The London and Plymouth citizens determined to read Spain a lesson which should make an impression. They had the worst fears for the fate of the prisoners; but if they could not save, they could avenge them. Sir Francis Drake, who wished for nothing better than to be at work again, volunteered his services, and a fleet was collected at Plymouth of twenty-five sail, every one of them fitted out by private enterprise. No finer armament, certainly no better-equipped armament, ever left the English shores. The expenses were, of course, enormous. Of seamen and soldiers there were between two and three thousand. Drake's name was worth an army. The cost was to be recovered out of the expedition somehow; the Spaniards were to be made to pay for it; but how or when was left to Drake's judgment. This time there was no second in command sent by the friends of Spain to hang upon his arm. By universal consent he had the absolute command. His instructions were merely to inquire at Spanish ports into the meaning of the arrest. Beyond that he was left to go where he pleased and do what he pleased on his own responsibility. The Queen said frankly that if it proved convenient she intended to disown him. Drake had no objection to being disowned, so he could teach the Spaniards to be more careful how they handled Englishmen. What came of it will be the subject of the next lecture. Father Parsons said the Protestant traders of England had grown effeminate and dared not fight. In the ashes of their own smoking cities the Spaniards had to learn that Father Parsons had misread his countrymen. If Drake had been given to heroics he might have left Virgil's lines inscribed above the broken arms of Castile at St. Domingo:

En ego victa situ quam veri effeta senectus Arma inter regum falsa formidine ludit: Respice ad haec.



LECTURE VI

THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES

Queen Elizabeth and her brother-in-law of Spain were reluctant champions of opposing principles. In themselves they had no wish to quarrel, but each was driven forward by fate and circumstance—Philip by the genius of the Catholic religion, Elizabeth by the enthusiasts for freedom and by the advice of statesmen who saw no safety for her except in daring. Both wished for peace, and refused to see that peace was impossible; but both were compelled to yield to their subjects' eagerness. Philip had to threaten England with invasion; Elizabeth had to show Philip that England had a long arm, which Spanish wisdom would do well to fear. It was a singular position. Philip had outraged orthodoxy and dared the anger of Rome by maintaining an ambassador at Elizabeth's Court after her excommunication. He had laboured for a reconciliation with a sincerity which his secret letters make it impossible to doubt. He had condescended even to sue for it, in spite of Drake and the voyage of the Pelican; yet he had helped the Pope to set Ireland in a flame. He had encouraged Elizabeth's Catholic subjects in conspiracy after conspiracy. He had approved of attempts to dispose of her as he had disposed of the Prince of Orange. Elizabeth had retaliated, though with half a heart, by letting her soldiers volunteer into the service of the revolted Netherlands, by permitting English privateers to plunder the Spanish colonies, seize the gold ships, and revenge their own wrongs. Each, perhaps, had wished to show the other what an open war would cost them both, and each drew back when war appeared inevitable.

Events went their way. Holland and Zeeland, driven to extremity, had petitioned for incorporation with England; as a counter-stroke and a warning, Philip had arrested the English corn ships and imprisoned the owners and the crews. Her own fleet was nothing. The safety of the English shores depended on the spirit of the adventurers, and she could not afford to check the anger with which the news was received. To accept the offer of the States was war, and war she would not have. Herself, she would not act at all; but in her usual way she might let her subjects act for themselves, and plead, as Philip pleaded in excuse for the Inquisition, that she could not restrain them. And thus it was that in September 1585, Sir Francis Drake found himself with a fleet of twenty-five privateers and 2,500 men who had volunteered to serve with him under his own command. He had no distinct commission. The expedition had been fitted out as a private undertaking. Neither officers nor crews had been engaged for the service of the Crown. They received no wages. In the eye of the law they were pirates. They were going on their own account to read the King of Spain a necessary lesson and pay their expenses at the King of Spain's cost. Young Protestant England had taken fire. The name of Drake set every Protestant heart burning, and hundreds of gallant gentlemen had pressed in to join. A grandson of Burghley had come, and Edward Winter the Admiral's son, and Francis Knolles the Queen's cousin, and Martin Frobisher, and Christopher Carlile. Philip Sidney had wished to make one also in the glory; but Philip Sidney was needed elsewhere. The Queen's consent had been won from her at a bold interval in her shifting moods. The hot fit might pass away, and Burghley sent Drake a hint to be off before her humour changed. No word was said. On the morning of the 14th of September the signal flag was flying from Drake's maintop to up anchor and away. Drake, as he admitted after, 'was not the most assured of her Majesty's perseverance to let them go forward.' Past Ushant he would be beyond reach of recall. With light winds and calms they drifted across the Bay. They fell in with a few Frenchmen homeward-bound from the Banks, and let them pass uninjured. A large Spanish ship which they met next day, loaded with excellent fresh salt fish, was counted lawful prize. The fish was new and good, and was distributed through the fleet. Standing leisurely on, they cleared Finisterre and came up with the Isles of Bayona, at the mouth of Vigo Harbour. They dropped anchor there, and 'it was a great matter and a royal sight to see them.' The Spanish Governor, Don Pedro Bemadero, sent off with some astonishment to know who and what they were. Drake answered with a question whether England and Spain were at war, and if not why the English merchants had been arrested. Don Pedro could but say that he knew of no war, and for the merchants an order had come for their release. For reply Drake landed part of his force on the islands, and Don Pedro, not knowing what to make of such visitors, found it best to propitiate them with cartloads of wine and fruit. The weather, which had been hitherto fine, showed signs of change. The wind rose, and the sea with it. The anchorage was exposed, and Drake sent Christopher Carlile, with one of his ships and a few pinnaces, up the harbour to look out for better shelter. Their appearance created a panic in the town. The alarmed inhabitants took to their boats, carrying off their property and their Church plate. Carlile, who had a Calvinistic objection to idolatry, took the liberty of detaining part of these treasures. From one boat he took a massive silver cross belonging to the High Church at Vigo; from another an image of Our Lady, which the sailors relieved of her clothes and were said, when she was stripped, to have treated with some indignity. Carlile's report being satisfactory, the whole fleet was brought the next day up the harbour and moored above the town. The news had by this time spread into the country. The Governor of Galicia came down with all the force which he could collect in a hurry. Perhaps he was in time to save Vigo itself. Perhaps Drake, having other aims in view, did not care to be detained over a smaller object. The Governor, at any rate, saw that the English were too strong for him to meddle with. The best that he could look for was to persuade them to go away on the easiest terms. Drake and he met in boats for a parley. Drake wanted water and fresh provisions. Drake was to be allowed to furnish himself undisturbed. He had secured what he most wanted. He had shown the King of Spain that he was not invulnerable in his own home dominion, and he sailed away unmolested. Madrid was in consternation. That the English could dare insult the first prince in Europe on the sacred soil of the Peninsula itself seemed like a dream. The Council of State sat for three days considering the meaning of it. Drake's name was already familiar in Spanish ears. It was not conceivable that he had come only to inquire after the arrested ships and seamen. But what could the English Queen be about? Did she not know that she existed only by the forbearance of Philip? Did she know the King of Spain's force? Did not she and her people quake? Little England, it was said by some of these councillors, was to be swallowed at a mouthful by the King of half the world. The old Admiral Santa Cruz was less confident about the swallowing. He observed that England had many teeth, and that instead of boasting of Spanish greatness it would be better to provide against what she might do with them. Till now the corsairs had appeared only in twos and threes. With such a fleet behind him Drake might go where he pleased. He might be going to the South Seas again. He might take Madeira if he liked, or the Canary Islands. Santa Cruz himself thought he would make for the West Indies and Panama, and advised the sending out there instantly every available ship that they had.

The gold fleet was Drake's real object. He had information that it would be on its way to Spain by the Cape de Verde Islands, and he had learnt the time when it was to be expected. From Vigo he sailed for the Canaries, looked in at Palma, with 'intention to have taken our pleasure there,' but found the landing dangerous and the town itself not worth the risk. He ran on to the Cape de Verde Islands. He had measured his time too narrowly. The gold fleet had arrived and had gone. He had missed it by twelve hours, 'the reason,' as he said with a sigh, 'best known to God.' The chance of prize-money was lost, but the political purpose of the expedition could still be completed. The Cape de Verde Islands could not sail away, and a beginning could be made with Sant Iago. Sant Iago was a thriving, well-populated town, and down in Drake's book as specially needing notice, some Plymouth sailors having been recently murdered there. Christopher Carlile, always handy and trustworthy, was put on shore with a thousand men to attack the place on the undefended side. The Spanish commander, the bishop, and most of the people fled, as at Vigo, into the mountains with their plate and money. Carlile entered without opposition, and flew St. George's Cross from the castle as a signal to the fleet. Drake came in, landed the rest of his force, and took possession. It happened to be the 17th of November—the anniversary of the Queen's accession—and ships and batteries, dressed out with English flags, celebrated the occasion with salvoes of cannon. Houses and magazines were then searched and plundered. Wine was found in large quantities, rich merchandise for the Indian trade, and other valuables. Of gold and silver nothing—it had all been removed. Drake waited for a fortnight, hoping that the Spaniards would treat for the ransom of the city. When they made no sign, he marched twelve miles inland to a village where the Governor and the bishop were said to have taken refuge. But the village was found deserted. The Spaniards had gone to the mountains, where it was useless to follow them, and were too proud to bargain with a pirate chief. Sant Iago was a beautifully built city, and Drake would perhaps have spared it; but a ship-boy who had strayed was found murdered and barbarously mutilated. The order was given to burn. Houses, magazines, churches, public buildings were turned to ashes, and the work being finished Drake went on, as Santa Cruz expected, for the Spanish West Indies. The Spaniards were magnificent in all that they did and touched. They built their cities in their new possessions on the most splendid models of the Old World. St. Domingo and Carthagena had their castles and cathedrals, palaces, squares, and streets, grand and solid as those at Cadiz and Seville, and raised as enduring monuments of the power and greatness of the Castilian monarchs. To these Drake meant to pay a visit. Beyond them was the Isthmus, where he had made his first fame and fortune, with Panama behind, the depot of the Indian treasure. So far all had gone well with him. He had taken what he wanted out of Vigo; he had destroyed Sant Iago and had not lost a man. Unfortunately he had now a worse enemy to deal with than Spanish galleons or Spanish garrisons. He was in the heat of the tropics. Yellow fever broke out and spread through the fleet. Of those who caught the infection few recovered, or recovered only to be the wrecks of themselves. It was swift in its work. In a few days more than two hundred had died. But the north-east trade blew merrily. The fleet sped on before it. In eighteen days they were in the roads at Dominica, the island of brooks and rivers and fruit. Limes and lemons and oranges were not as yet. But there were leaves and roots of the natural growth, known to the Caribs as antidotes to the fever, and the Caribs, when they learnt that the English were the Spaniards' enemies, brought them this precious remedy and taught them the use of it. The ships were washed and ventilated, and the water casks refilled. The infection seemed to have gone as suddenly as it appeared, and again all was well.

Christmas was kept at St. Kitts, which was then uninhabited. A council of war was held to consider what should be done next. St. Domingo lay nearest to them. It was the finest of all the Spanish colonial cities. It was the capital of the West Indian Government, the great centre of West Indian commerce. In the cathedral, before the high altar, lay Columbus and his brother Diego. In natural wealth no island in the world outrivals Espinola, where the city stood. A vast population had collected there, far away from harm, protected, as they supposed, by the majesty of the mother country, the native inhabitants almost exterminated, themselves undreaming that any enemy could approach them from the ocean, and therefore negligent of defence and enjoying themselves in easy security.

Drake was to give them a new experience and a lesson for the future. On their way across from St. Kitts the adventurers overhauled a small vessel bound to the same port as they were. From the crew of this vessel they learnt that the harbour at St. Domingo was formed, like so many others in the West Indies, by a long sandspit, acting as a natural breakwater. The entrance was a narrow inlet at the extremity of the spit, and batteries had been mounted there to cover it. To land on the outer side of the sandbank was made impossible by the surf. There was one sheltered point only where boats could go on shore, but this was ten miles distant from the town.

Ten miles was but a morning's march. Drake went in himself in a pinnace, surveyed the landing-place, and satisfied himself of its safety. The plan of attack at Sant Iago was to be exactly repeated. On New Year's Eve Christopher Carlile was again landed with half the force in the fleet. Drake remained with the rest, and prepared to force the entrance of the harbour if Carlile succeeded. Their coming had been seen from the city. The alarm had been given, and the women and children, the money in the treasury, the consecrated plate, movable property of all kinds, were sent off inland as a precaution. Of regular troops there seem to have been none, but in so populous a city there was no difficulty in collecting a respectable force to defend it. The hidalgos formed a body of cavalry. The people generally were unused to arms, but they were Spaniards and brave men, and did not mean to leave their homes without a fight for it. Carlile lay still for the night. He marched at eight in the morning on New Year's Day, advanced leisurely, and at noon found himself in front of the wall. So far he had met no resistance, but a considerable body of horse—gentlemen and their servants chiefly—charged down on him out of the bush and out of the town. He formed into a square to receive them. They came on gallantly, but were received with pike and shot, and after a few attempts gave up and retired. Two gates were in front of Carlile, with a road to each leading through a jungle. At each gate were cannon, and the jungle was lined with musketeers. He divided his men and attacked both together. One party he led in person. The cannon opened on him, and an Englishman next to him was killed. He dashed on, leaving the Spaniards no time to reload, carried the gate at a rush, and cut his way through the streets to the great square. The second division had been equally successful, and St. Domingo was theirs except the castle, which was still untaken. Carlile's numbers were too small to occupy a large city. He threw up barricades and fortified himself in the square for the night. Drake brought the fleet in at daybreak, and landed guns, when the castle surrendered. A messenger—a negro boy—was sent to the Governor to learn the terms which he was prepared to offer to save the city from pillage. The Spanish officers were smarting with the disgrace. One of them struck the lad through the body with a lance. He ran back bleeding to the English lines and died at Drake's feet. Sir Francis was a dangerous man to provoke. Such doings had to be promptly stopped. In the part of the town which he occupied was a monastery with a number of friars in it. The religious orders, he well knew, were the chief instigators of the policy which was maddening the world. He sent two of these friars with the provost-marshal to the spot where the boy had been struck, promptly hanged them, and then despatched another to tell the Governor that he would hang two more every day at the same place till the officer was punished. The Spaniards had long learnt to call Drake the Draque, the serpent, the devil. They feared that the devil might be a man of his word. The offender was surrendered. It was not enough. Drake insisted that they should do justice on him themselves. The Governor found it prudent to comply, and the too hasty officer was executed.

The next point was the ransom of the city. The Spaniards still hesitating, 200 men were told off each morning to burn, while the rest searched the private houses, and palaces, and magazines. Government House was the grandest building in the New World. It was approached by broad flights of marble stairs. Great doors opened on a spacious gallery leading into a great hall, and above the portico hung the arms of Spain—a globe representing the world, a horse leaping upon it, and in the horse's mouth a scroll with the haughty motto, 'Non sufficit orbis.' Palace and scutcheon were levelled into dust by axe and gunpowder, and each day for a month the destruction went on, Drake's demands steadily growing and the unhappy Governor vainly pleading impossibility.

Vandalism, atrocity unheard of among civilised nations, dishonour to the Protestant cause, Drake deserving to swing at his own yardarm; so indignant Liberalism shrieked, and has not ceased shrieking. Let it be remembered that for fifteen years the Spaniards had been burning English seamen whenever they could catch them, plotting to kill the Queen and reduce England itself into vassaldom to the Pope. The English nation, the loyal part of it, were replying to the wild pretension by the hands of their own admiral. If Philip chose to countenance assassins, if the Holy Office chose to burn English sailors as heretics, those heretics had a right to make Spain understand that such a game was dangerous, that, as Santa Cruz had said, they had teeth and could use them.

It was found in the end that the Governor's plea of impossibility was more real than was at first believed. The gold and silver had been really carried off. All else that was valuable had been burnt or taken by the English. The destruction of a city so solidly built was tedious and difficult. Nearly half of it was blown up. The cathedral was spared, perhaps as the resting-place of Columbus. Drake had other work before him. After staying a month in undisturbed occupation he agreed to accept 25,000 ducats as a ransom for what was left and sailed away.

It was now February. The hot season was coming on, when the climate would be dangerous. There was still much to do and the time was running short. Panama had to be left for another opportunity. Drake's object was to deal blows which would shake the faith of Europe in the Spanish power. Carthagena stood next to St. Domingo among the Spanish West Indian fortresses. The situation was strong. In 1740 Carthagena was able to beat off Vernon and a great English fleet. But Drake's crews were in high health and spirits, and he determined to see what he could do with it. Surprise was no longer to be hoped for. The alarm had spread over the Caribbean Sea. But in their present humour they were ready to go anywhere and dare anything, and to Carthagena they went.

Drake's name carried terror before it. Every non-combatant—old men, women and children—had been cleared out before he arrived, but the rest prepared for a smart defence. The harbour at Carthagena was formed, as at St. Domingo and Port Royal, by a sandspit. The spit was long, narrow, in places not fifty yards wide, and covered with prickly bush, and along this, as before, it was necessary to advance to reach the city. A trench had been cut across at the neck, and a stiff barricade built and armed with heavy guns; behind this were several hundred musketeers, while the bush was full of Indians with poisoned arrows. Pointed stakes—poisoned also—had been driven into the ground along the approaches, on which to step was death. Two large galleys, full of men, patrolled inside the bank on the harbour edge, and with these preparations the inhabitants hoped to keep the dreadful Drake from reaching them. Carlile, as before, was to do the land fighting. He was set on shore three miles down the spit. The tide is slight in those seas, but he waited till it was out, and advanced along the outer shore at low-water mark. He was thus covered by the bank from the harbour galleys, and their shots passed over him. Two squadrons of horse came out, but could do nothing to him on the broken ground. The English pushed on to the wall, scarcely losing a man. They charged, scaled the parapets, and drove the Spanish infantry back at point of pike. Carlile killed their commander with his own hand. The rest fled after a short struggle, and Drake was master of Carthagena. Here for six weeks he remained. The Spaniards withdrew out of the city, and there were again parleys over the ransom money. Courtesies were exchanged among the officers. Drake entertained the Governor and his suite. The Governor returned the hospitality and received Drake and the English captains. Drake demanded 100,000 ducats. The Spaniards offered 30,000, and protested that they could pay no more. The dispute might have lasted longer, but it was cut short by the re-appearance of the yellow fever in the fleet, this time in a deadlier form. The Spanish offer was accepted, and Carthagena was left to its owners. It was time to be off, for the heat was telling, and the men began to drop with appalling rapidity. Nombre de Dios and Panama were near and under their lee, and Drake threw longing eyes on what, if all else had been well, might have proved an easy capture. But on a review of their strength, it was found that there were but 700 fit for duty who could be spared for the service, and a council of war decided that a march across the Isthmus with so small a force was too dangerous to be ventured. Enough had been done for glory, enough for the political impression to be made in Europe. The King of Spain had been dared in his own dominions. Three fine Spanish cities had been captured by storm and held to ransom. In other aspects the success had fallen short of expectation. This time they had taken no Cacafuego with a year's produce of the mines in her hold. The plate and coin had been carried off, and the spoils had been in a form not easily turned to value. The expedition had been fitted out by private persons to pay its own cost. The result in money was but 60,000l. Forty thousand had to be set aside for expenses. There remained but 20,000l. to be shared among the ships' companies. Men and officers had entered, high and low, without wages, on the chance of what they might get. The officers and owners gave a significant demonstration of the splendid spirit in which they had gone about their work. They decided to relinquish their own claims on the ransom paid for Carthagena, and bestow the same on the common seamen, 'wishing it were so much again as would be a sufficient reward for their painful endeavour.'

Thus all were well satisfied, conscious all that they had done their duty to their Queen and country. The adventurers' fleet turned homewards at the beginning of April. What men could do they had achieved. They could not fight against the pestilence of the tropics. For many days the yellow fever did its deadly work among them, and only slowly abated. They were delayed by calms and unfavourable winds. Their water ran short. They had to land again at Cape Antonio, the western point of Cuba, and sink wells to supply themselves. Drake himself, it was observed, worked with spade and bucket, like the meanest person in the whole company, always foremost where toil was to be endured or honour won, the wisest in the devising of enterprises, the calmest in danger, the first to set an example of energy in difficulties, and, above all, the firmest in maintaining order and discipline. The fever slackened as they reached the cooler latitudes. They worked their way up the Bahama Channel, going north to avoid the trades. The French Protestants had been attempting to colonise in Florida. The Spaniards had built a fortress on the coast, to observe their settlements and, as occasion offered, cut Huguenot throats. As he passed by Drake paid this fortress a visit and wiped it out. Farther north again he was in time to save the remnant of an English settlement, rashly planted there by another brilliant servant of Queen Elizabeth.

Of all the famous Elizabethans Sir Walter Raleigh is the most romantically interesting. His splendid and varied gifts, his chequered fortunes, and his cruel end, will embalm his memory in English history. But Raleigh's great accomplishments promised more than they performed. His hand was in everything, but of work successfully completed he had less to show than others far his inferiors, to whom fortune had offered fewer opportunities. He was engaged in a hundred schemes at once, and in every one of them there was always some taint of self, some personal ambition or private object to be gained. His life is a record of undertakings begun in enthusiasm, maintained imperfectly, and failures in the end. Among his other adventures he had sent a colony to Virginia. He had imagined, or had been led by others to believe, that there was an Indian Court there brilliant as Montezuma's, an enlightened nation crying to be admitted within the charmed circle of Gloriana's subjects. His princes and princesses proved things of air, or mere Indian savages; and of Raleigh there remains nothing in Virginia save the name of the city which is called after him. The starving survivors of his settlement on the Roanoke River were taken on board by Drake's returning squadron and carried home to England, where they all arrived safely, to the glory of God, as our pious ancestors said and meant in unconventional sincerity, on the 28th of July, 1586.

The expedition, as I have said, barely paid its cost. In the shape of wages the officers received nothing, and the crews but a few pounds a man; but there was, perhaps, not one of them who was not better pleased with the honour which he had brought back than if he had come home loaded with doubloons.

Startled Catholic Europe meanwhile rubbed its eyes and began to see that the 'enterprise of England,' as the intended invasion was called, might not be the easy thing which the seminary priests described it. The seminary priests had said that so far as England was Protestant at all it was Protestant only by the accident of its Government, that the immense majority of the people were Catholic at heart and were thirsting for a return to the fold, that on the first appearance of a Spanish army of deliverance the whole edifice which Elizabeth had raised would crumble to the ground. I suppose it is true that if the world had then been advanced to its present point of progress, if there had been then recognised a Divine right to rule in the numerical majority, even without a Spanish army the seminary priests would have had their way. Elizabeth's Parliaments were controlled by the municipalities of the towns, and the towns were Protestant. A Parliament chosen by universal suffrage and electoral districts would have sent Cecil and Walsingham into private life or to the scaffold, replaced the Mass in the churches, and reduced the Queen, if she had been left on the throne, into the humble servant of the Pope and Philip. It would not perhaps have lasted, but that, so far as I can judge, would have been the immediate result, and instead of a Reformation we should have had the light come in the shape of lightning. But I have often asked my Radical friends what is to be done if out of every hundred enlightened voters two-thirds will give their votes one way, but are afraid to fight, and the remaining third will not only vote but will fight too if the poll goes against them? Which has then the right to rule? I can tell them which will rule. The brave and resolute minority will rule. Plato says that if one man was stronger than all the rest of mankind he would rule all the rest of mankind. It must be so, because there is no appeal. The majority must be prepared to assert their Divine right with their right hands, or it will go the way that other Divine rights have gone before. I will not believe the world to have been so ill-constructed that there are rights which cannot be enforced. It appears to me that the true right to rule in any nation lies with those who are best and bravest, whether their numbers are large or small; and three centuries ago the best and bravest part of this English nation had determined, though they were but a third of it, that Pope and Spaniard should be no masters of theirs. Imagination goes for much in such excited times. To the imagination of Europe in the sixteenth century the power of Spain appeared irresistible if she chose to exert it. Heretic Dutchmen might rebel in a remote province, English pirates might take liberties with Spanish traders, but the Prince of Parma was making the Dutchmen feel their master at last. The pirates were but so many wasps, with venom in their stings, but powerless to affect the general tendencies of things. Except to the shrewder eyes of such men as Santa Cruz the strength of the English at sea had been left out of count in the calculations of the resources of Elizabeth's Government. Suddenly a fleet of these same pirates, sent out, unassisted by their sovereign, by the private impulse of a few individuals, had insulted the sacred soil of Spain herself, sailed into Vigo, pillaged the churches, taken anything that they required, and had gone away unmolested. They had attacked, stormed, burnt, or held to ransom three of Spain's proudest colonial cities, and had come home unfought with. The Catholic conspirators had to recognise that they had a worse enemy to deal with than Puritan controversialists or spoilt Court favourites. The Protestant English mariners stood between them and their prey, and had to be encountered on an element which did not bow to popes or princes, before Mary Stuart was to wear Elizabeth's crown or Cardinal Allen be enthroned at Canterbury. It was a revelation to all parties. Elizabeth herself had not expected—perhaps had not wished—so signal a success. War was now looked on as inevitable. The Spanish admirals represented that the national honour required revenge for an injury so open and so insolent. The Pope, who had been long goading the lethargic Philip into action, believed that now at last he would be compelled to move; and even Philip himself, enduring as he was, had been roused to perceive that intrigues and conspiracies would serve his turn no longer. He must put out his strength in earnest, or his own Spaniards might turn upon him as unworthy of the crown of Isabella. Very reluctantly he allowed the truth to be brought home to him. He had never liked the thought of invading England. If he conquered it, he would not be allowed to keep it. Mary Stuart would have to be made queen, and Mary Stuart was part French, and might be wholly French. The burden of the work would be thrown entirely on his shoulders, and his own reward was to be the Church's blessing and the approval of his own conscience—nothing else, so far as he could see. The Pope would recover his annates, his Peter's pence, and his indulgence market.

If the thing was to be done, the Pope, it was clear, ought to pay part of the cost, and this was what the Pope did not intend to do if he could help it. The Pope was flattering himself that Drake's performance would compel Spain to go to war with England whether he assisted or did not. In this matter Philip attempted to undeceive his Holiness. He instructed Olivarez, his ambassador at Rome, to tell the Pope that nothing had been yet done to him by the English which he could not overlook, and unless the Pope would come down with a handsome contribution peace he would make. The Pope stormed and raged; he said he doubted whether Philip was a true son of the Church at all; he flung plates and dishes at the servants' heads at dinner. He said that if he gave Philip money Philip would put it in his pocket and laugh at him. Not one maravedi would he give till a Spanish army was actually landed on English shores, and from this resolution he was not to be moved.

To Philip it was painfully certain that if he invaded and conquered England the English Catholics would insist that he must make Mary Stuart queen. He did not like Mary Stuart. He disapproved of her character. He distrusted her promises. Spite of Jesuits and seminary priests, he believed that she was still a Frenchwoman at heart, and a bad woman besides. Yet something he must do for the outraged honour of Castile. He concluded, in his slow way, that he would collect a fleet, the largest and best-appointed that had ever floated on the sea. He would send or lead it in person to the English Channel. He would command the situation with an overwhelming force; and then would choose some course which would be more convenient to himself than to his Holiness at Rome. On the whole he was inclined to let Elizabeth continue queen, and forget and forgive if she would put away her Walsinghams and her Drakes, and would promise to be good for the future. If she remained obstinate his great fleet would cover the passage of the Prince of Parma's army, and he would then dictate his own terms in London.



LECTURE VII

ATTACK ON CADIZ

I recollect being told when a boy, on sending in a bad translation of Horace, that I ought to remember that Horace was a man of intelligence and did not write nonsense. The same caution should be borne in mind by students of history. They see certain things done by kings and statesmen which they believe they can interpret by assuming such persons to have been knaves or idiots. Once an explanation given from the baser side of human nature, they assume that it is necessarily the right one, and they make their Horace into a fool without a misgiving that the folly may lie elsewhere. Remarkable men and women have usually had some rational motive for their conduct, which may be discovered, if we look for it with our eyes open.

Nobody has suffered more from bad translators than Elizabeth. The circumstances of Queen Elizabeth's birth, the traditions of her father, the interests of England, and the sentiments of the party who had sustained her claim to the succession, obliged her on coming to the throne to renew the separation from the Papacy. The Church of England was re-established on an Anglo-Catholic basis, which the rival factions might interpret each in their own way. To allow more than one form of public worship would have led in the heated temper of men's minds to quarrels and civil wars. But conscience might be left free under outward conformity, and those whom the Liturgy did not suit might use their own ritual in their private houses. Elizabeth and her wise advisers believed that if her subjects could be kept from fighting and killing one another, and were not exasperated by outward displays of difference, they would learn that righteousness of life was more important than orthodoxy, and to estimate at their real value the rival dogmas of theology. Had time permitted the experiment to have a fair trial, it would perhaps have succeeded, but, unhappily for the Queen and for England, the fire of controversy was still too hot under the ashes. Protestants and Catholics had been taught to look on one another as enemies of God, and were still reluctant to take each other's hands at the bidding of an Act of Parliament. The more moderate of the Catholic laity saw no difference so great between the English service and the Mass as to force them to desert the churches where their fathers had worshipped for centuries. They petitioned the Council of Trent for permission to use the English Prayer Book; and had the Council consented, religious dissension would have dissolved at last into an innocent difference of opinion. But the Council and the Pope had determined that there should be no compromise with heresy, and the request was refused, though it was backed by Philip's ambassador in London. The action of the Papacy obliged the Queen to leave the Administration in the hands of Protestants, on whose loyalty she could rely. As the struggle with the Reformation spread and deepened she was compelled to assist indirectly the Protestant party in France and Scotland. But she still adhered to her own principle; she refused to put herself at the head of a Protestant League. She took no step without keeping open a line of retreat on a contrary policy. She had Catholics in her Privy Council who were pensioners of Spain. She filled her household with Catholics, and many a time drove Burghley distracted by listening to them at critical moments. Her constant effort was to disarm the antagonism of the adherents of the old belief, by admitting them to her confidence, and showing them that one part of her subjects was as dear to her as another.

For ten years she went on struggling. For ten years she was proudly able to say that during all that time no Catholic had suffered for his belief either in purse or person. The advanced section of the Catholic clergy was in despair. They saw the consciences of their flocks benumbed and their faith growing lukewarm. They stirred up the rebellion of the North. They persuaded Pius V. to force them to a sense of their duties by declaring Elizabeth excommunicated. They sent their missionaries through the English counties to recover sheep that were straying, and teach the sin of submission to a sovereign whom the Pope had deposed. Then had followed the Ridolfi plot, deliberately encouraged by the Pope and Spain, which had compelled the Government to tighten the reins. One conspiracy had followed another. Any means were held legitimate to rid the world of an enemy of God. The Queen's character was murdered by the foulest slanders, and a hundred daggers were sharpened to murder her person. The King of Spain had not advised the excommunication, because he knew that he would be expected to execute it, and he had other things to do. When called on to act, he and Alva said that if the English Catholics wanted Spanish help they must do something for themselves. To do the priests justice, they were brave enough. What they did, and how far they had succeeded in making the country disaffected, Father Parsons has told you in the paper which I read to you in a former lecture. Elizabeth refused to take care of herself. She would show no distrust. She would not dismiss the Catholic ladies and gentlemen from the household. She would allow no penal laws to be enforced against Catholics as such. Repeated conspiracies to assassinate her were detected and exposed, but she would take no warning. She would have no bodyguard. The utmost that she would do was to allow the Jesuits and seminary priests, who, by Parsons's own acknowledgment, were sowing rebellion, to be banished the realm, and if they persisted in remaining afterwards, to be treated as traitors. When executions are treated as martyrdoms, candidates will never be wanting for the crown of glory, and the flame only burnt the hotter. Tyburn and the quartering knife was a horrid business, and Elizabeth sickened over it. She hated the severity which she was compelled to exercise. Her name was defiled with the grossest calumnies. She knew that she might be murdered any day. For herself she was proudly indifferent; but her death would and must be followed by a furious civil war. She told the Privy Council one day after some stormy scene, that she would come back afterwards and amuse herself with seeing the Queen of Scots making their heads fly.

Philip was weary of it too. He had enough to do in ruling his own dominions without quarrelling for ever with his sister-in-law. He had seen that she had subjects, few or many, who, if he struck, would strike back again. English money and English volunteers were keeping alive the war in the Netherlands. English privateers had plundered his gold ships, destroyed his commerce, and burnt his West Indian cities—all this in the interests of the Pope, who gave him fine words in plenty, but who, when called on for money to help in the English conquest, only flung about his dinner-plates. The Duke of Alva, while he was alive, and the Prince of Parma, who commanded in the Netherlands in Alva's place, advised peace if peace could be had on reasonable terms. If Elizabeth would consent to withdraw her help from the Netherlands, and would allow the English Catholics the tacit toleration with which her reign had begun, they were of opinion, and Philip was of opinion too, that it would be better to forgive Drake and St. Domingo, abandon Mary Stuart and the seminary priests, and meddle no more with English internal politics.

Tired with a condition which was neither war nor peace, tired with hanging traitors and the endless problem of her sister of Scotland, Elizabeth saw no reason for refusing offers which would leave her in peace for the rest of her own life. Philip, it was said, would restore the Mass in the churches in Holland. She might stipulate for such liberty of conscience to the Holland Protestants as she was herself willing to allow the English Catholics. She saw no reason why she should insist on a liberty of public worship which she had herself forbidden at home. She did not see why the Hollanders should be so precise about hearing Mass. She said she would rather hear a thousand Masses herself than have on her conscience the crimes committed for the Mass or against it. She would not have her realm in perpetual torment for Mr. Cecil's brothers in Christ.

This was Elizabeth's personal feeling. It could not be openly avowed. The States might then surrender to Philip in despair, and obtain better securities for their political liberties than she was ready to ask for them. They might then join the Spaniards and become her mortal enemies. But she had a high opinion of her own statecraft. Her Catholic friends assured her that, once at peace with Philip, she would be safe from all the world. At this moment accident revealed suddenly another chasm which was opening unsuspected at her feet.

Both Philip and she were really wishing for peace. A treaty of peace between the Catholic King and an excommunicated princess would end the dream of a Catholic revolution in England. If the English peers and gentry saw the censures of the Church set aside so lightly by the most orthodox prince in Europe, Parsons and his friends would preach in vain to them the obligation of rebellion. If this deadly negotiation was to be broken off, a blow must be struck, and struck at once. There was not a moment to be lost.

The enchanted prisoner at Tutbury was the sleeping and waking dream of Catholic chivalry. The brave knight who would slay the dragon, deliver Mary Stuart, and place her on the usurper's throne, would outdo Orlando or St. George, and be sung of for ever as the noblest hero who had ever wielded brand or spear. Many a young British heart had thrilled with hope that for him the enterprise was reserved. One of these was a certain Anthony Babington, a gentleman of some fortune in Derbyshire. A seminary priest named Ballard, excited, like the rest, by the need of action, and anxious to prevent the peace, fell in with this Babington, and thought he had found the man for his work. Elizabeth dead and Mary Stuart free, there would be no more talk of peace. A plot was easily formed. Half a dozen gentlemen, five of them belonging to or connected with Elizabeth's own household, were to shoot or stab her and escape in the confusion; Babington was to make a dash on Mary Stuart's prison-house and carry her off to some safe place; while Ballard undertook to raise the Catholic peers and have her proclaimed queen. Elizabeth once removed, it was supposed that they would not hesitate. Parma would bring over the Spanish army from Dunkirk. The Protestants would be paralysed. All would be begun and ended in a few weeks or even days. The Catholic religion would be re-established and the hated heresy would be trampled out for ever. Mary Stuart had been consulted and had enthusiastically agreed.

This interesting lady had been lately profuse in her protestations of a desire for reconciliation with her dearest sister. Elizabeth had almost believed her sincere. Sick of the endless trouble with Mary Stuart and her pretensions and schemings, she had intended that the Scotch queen should be included in the treaty with Philip, with an implied recognition of her right to succeed to the English throne after Elizabeth's death. It had been necessary, however, to ascertain in some way whether her protestations were sincere. A secret watch had been kept over her correspondence, and Babington's letters and her own answers had fallen into Walsingham's hands. There it all was in her own cipher, the key to which had been betrayed by the carelessness of a confederate. The six gentlemen who were to have rewarded Elizabeth's confidence by killing her were easily recognised. They were seized, with Babington and Ballard, when they imagined themselves on the eve of their triumph. Babington flinched and confessed, and they were all hanged. Mary Stuart herself had outworn compassion. Twice already on the discovery of her earlier plots the House of Commons had petitioned for her execution. For this last piece of treachery she was tried at Fotheringay before a commission of Peers and Privy Councillors. She denied her letters, but her complicity was proved beyond a doubt. Parliament was called, and a third time insisted that the long drama should now be ended and loyal England be allowed to breathe in peace. Elizabeth signed the warrant. France, Spain, any other power in the world would have long since made an end of a competitor so desperate and so incurable. Torn by many feelings—natural pity, dread of the world's opinion—Elizabeth paused before ordering the warrant to be executed. If nothing had been at stake but her own life, she would have left the lady to weave fresh plots and at last, perhaps, to succeed. If the nation's safety required an end to be made with her, she felt it hard that the duty should be thrown on herself. Where were all those eager champions who had signed the Association Bond, who had talked so loudly? Could none of them be found to recollect their oaths and take the law into their own hands?

Her Council, Burghley, and the rest, knowing her disposition and feeling that it was life or death to English liberty, took the responsibility on themselves. They sent the warrant down to Fotheringay at their own risk, leaving their mistress to deny, if she pleased, that she had meant it to be executed; and the wild career of Mary Stuart ended on the scaffold.

They knew what they were immediately doing. They knew that if treason had a meaning Mary Stuart had brought her fate upon herself. They did not, perhaps, realise the full effects that were to follow, or that with Mary Stuart had vanished the last serious danger of a Catholic insurrection in England; or perhaps they did realise it, and this was what decided them to act.

I cannot dwell on this here. As long as there was a Catholic princess of English blood to succeed to the throne, the allegiance of the Catholics to Elizabeth had been easily shaken. If she was spared now, every one of them would look on her as their future sovereign. To overthrow Elizabeth might mean the loss of national independence. The Queen of Scots gone, they were paralysed by divided counsels, and love of country proved stronger than their creed.

What concerns us specially at present is the effect on the King of Spain. The reluctance of Philip to undertake the English enterprise (the 'empresa,' as it was generally called) had arisen from a fear that when it was accomplished he would lose the fruit of his labours. He could never assure himself that if he placed Mary Stuart on the throne she would not become eventually French. He now learnt that she had bequeathed to himself her claims on the English succession. He had once been titular King of England. He had pretensions of his own, as in the descent from Edward III. The Jesuits, the Catholic enthusiasts throughout Europe, assured him that if he would now take up the cause in earnest, he might make England a province of Spain. There were still difficulties. He might hope that the English Catholic laity would accept him, but he could not be sure of it. He could not be sure that he would have the support of the Pope. He continued, as the Conde de Feria said scornfully of him, 'meando en vado,' a phrase which I cannot translate; it meant hesitating when he ought to act. But he saw, or thought he saw, that he could now take a stronger attitude towards Elizabeth as a claimant to her throne. If the treaty of peace was to go forward, he could raise his terms. He could insist on the restoration of the Catholic religion in England. The States of the Low Countries had made over five of their strongest towns to Elizabeth as the price of her assistance. He could insist on her restoring them, not to the States, but to himself. Could she be brought to consent to such an act of perfidy, Parma and he both felt that the power would then be gone from her, as effectually as Samson's when his locks were clipped by the harlot, and they could leave her then, if it suited them, on a throne which would have become a pillory—for the finger of scorn to point at.

With such a view before him it was more than ever necessary for Philip to hurry forward the preparations which he had already commenced. The more formidable he could make himself, the better able he would be to frighten Elizabeth into submission.

Every dockyard in Spain was set to work, building galleons and collecting stores. Santa Cruz would command. Philip was himself more resolved than ever to accompany the expedition in person and dictate from the English Channel the conditions of the pacification of Europe.

Secrecy was no longer attempted—indeed, was no longer possible. All Latin Christendom was palpitating with expectation. At Lisbon, at Cadiz, at Barcelona, at Naples, the shipwrights were busy night and day. The sea was covered with vessels freighted with arms and provisions streaming to the mouth of the Tagus. Catholic volunteers from all nations flocked into the Peninsula, to take a share in the mighty movement which was to decide the fate of the world, and bishops, priests, and monks were set praying through the whole Latin Communion that Heaven would protect its own cause.

Meantime the negotiations for peace continued, and Elizabeth, strange to say, persisted in listening. She would not see what was plain to all the world besides. The execution of the Queen of Scots lay on her spirit and threw her back into the obstinate humour which had made Walsingham so often despair of her safety. For two months after that scene at Fotheringay she had refused to see Burghley, and would consult no one but Sir James Crofts and her Spanish-tempered ladies. She knew that Spain now intended that she should betray the towns in the Low Countries, yet she was blind to the infamy which it would bring upon her. She left her troops there without their wages to shiver into mutiny. She named commissioners, with Sir James Crofts at their head, to go to Ostend and treat with Parma, and if she had not resolved on an act of treachery she at least played with the temptation, and persuaded herself that if she chose to make over the towns to Philip, she would be only restoring them to their lawful owner.

Burghley and Walsingham, you can see from their letters, believed now that Elizabeth had ruined herself at last. Happily her moods were variable as the weather. She was forced to see the condition to which she had reduced her affairs in the Low Countries by the appearance of a number of starving wretches who had deserted from the garrisons there and had come across to clamour for their pay at her own palace gates. If she had no troops in the field but a mutinous and starving rabble, she might get no terms at all. It might be well to show Philip that on one element at least she could still be dangerous. She had lost nothing by the bold actions of Drake and the privateers. With half a heart she allowed Drake to fit them out again, take the Buonaventura, a ship of her own, to carry his flag, and go down to the coast of Spain and see what was going on. He was not to do too much. She sent a vice-admiral with him, in the Lion, to be a check on over-audacity. Drake knew how to deal with embarrassing vice-admirals. His own adventurers would sail, if he ordered, to the Mountains of the Moon, and be quite certain that it was the right place to go to. Once under way and on the blue water he would go his own course and run his own risks. Cadiz Harbour was thronged with transports, provision ships, powder vessels—a hundred sail of them—many of a thousand tons and over, loading with stores for the Armada. There were thirty sail of adventurers, the smartest ships afloat on the ocean, and sailed by the smartest seamen that ever handled rope or tiller. Something might be done at Cadiz if he did not say too much about it. The leave had been given to him to go, but he knew by experience, and Burghley again warned him, that it might, and probably would, be revoked if he waited too long. The moment was his own, and he used it. He was but just in time. Before his sails were under the horizon a courier galloped into Plymouth with orders that under no condition was he to enter port or haven of the King of Spain, or injure Spanish subjects. What else was he going out for? He had guessed how it would be. Comedy or earnest he could not tell. If earnest, some such order would be sent after him, and he had not an instant to lose.

He sailed on the morning of the 12th of April. Off Ushant he fell in with a north-west gale, and he flew on, spreading every stitch of canvas which his spars would bear. In five days he was at Cape St. Vincent. On the 18th he had the white houses of Cadiz right in front of him, and could see for himself the forests of masts from the ships and transports with which the harbour was choked. Here was a chance for a piece of service if there was courage for the venture. He signalled for his officers to come on board the Buonaventura. There before their eyes was, if not the Armada itself, the materials which were to fit the Armada for the seas. Did they dare to go in with him and destroy them? There were batteries at the harbour mouth, but Drake's mariners had faced Spanish batteries at St. Domingo and Carthagena and had not found them very formidable. Go in? Of course they would. Where Drake would lead the corsairs of Plymouth were never afraid to follow. The vice-admiral pleaded danger to her Majesty's ships. It was not the business of an English fleet to be particular about danger. Straight in they went with a fair wind and a flood tide, ran past the batteries and under a storm of shot, to which they did not trouble themselves to wait to reply. The poor vice-admiral followed reluctantly in the Lion. A single shot hit the Lion, and he edged away out of range, anchored, and drifted to sea again with the ebb. But Drake and all the rest dashed on, sank the guardship—a large galleon—and sent flying a fleet of galleys which ventured too near them and were never seen again.

Further resistance there was none—absolutely none. The crews of the store ships escaped in their boats to land. The governor of Cadiz, the same Duke of Medina Sidonia who the next year was to gain a disastrous immortality, fled 'like a tall gentleman' to raise troops and prevent Drake from landing. Drake had no intention of landing. At his extreme leisure he took possession of the Spanish shipping, searched every vessel, and carried off everything that he could use. He detained as prisoners the few men that he found on board, and then, after doing his work deliberately and completely, he set the hulls on fire, cut the cables, and left them to drive on the rising tide under the walls of the town—a confused mass of blazing ruin. On the 12th of April he had sailed from Plymouth; on the 19th he entered Cadiz Harbour; on the 1st of May he passed out again without the loss of a boat or a man. He said in jest that he had singed the King of Spain's beard for him. In sober prose he had done the King of Spain an amount of damage which a million ducats and a year's labour would imperfectly replace. The daring rapidity of the enterprise astonished Spain, and astonished Europe more than the storm of the West Indian towns. The English had long teeth, as Santa Cruz had told Philip's council, and the teeth would need drawing before Mass would be heard again at Westminster. The Spaniards were a gallant race, and a dashing exploit, though at their own expense, could be admired by the countrymen of Cervantes. 'So praised,' we read, 'was Drake for his valour among them, that they said that if he was not a Lutheran there would not be the like of him in the world.' A Court lady was invited by the King to join a party on a lake near Madrid. The lady replied that she dared not trust herself on the water with his Majesty lest Sir Francis Drake should have her.

Drake might well be praised. But Drake would have been the first to divide the honour with the comrades who were his arm and hand. Great admirals and generals do not win their battles single-handed like the heroes of romance. Orders avail only when there are men to execute them. Not a captain, not an officer who served under Drake, ever flinched or blundered. Never was such a school for seamen as that twenty years' privateering war between the servants of the Pope and the West-country Protestant adventurers. Those too must be remembered who built and rigged the ships in which they sailed and fought their battles. We may depend upon it that there was no dishonesty in contractors, no scamping of the work in the yards where the Plymouth rovers were fitted out for sea. Their hearts were in it; they were soldiers of a common cause.

Three weeks had sufficed for Cadiz. No order for recall had yet arrived. Drake had other plans before him, and the men were in high spirits and ready for anything. A fleet of Spanish men-of-war was expected round from the Mediterranean. He proposed to stay for a week or two in the neighbourhood of the Straits, in the hope of falling in with them. He wanted fresh water, too, and had to find it somewhere.

Before leaving Cadiz Roads he had to decide what to do with his prisoners. Many English were known to be in the hands of the Holy Office working in irons as galley slaves. He sent in a pinnace to propose an exchange, and had to wait some days for an answer. At length, after a reference to Lisbon, the Spanish authorities replied that they had no English prisoners. If this was true those they had must have died of barbarous usage; and after a consultation with his officers Sir Francis sent in word that for the future such prisoners as they might take would be sold to the Moors, and the money applied to the redemption of English captives in other parts of the world.

Water was the next point. There were springs at Faro, with a Spanish force stationed there to guard them. Force or no force, water was to be had. The boats were sent on shore. The boats' crews stormed the forts and filled the casks. The vice-admiral again lifted up his voice. The Queen had ordered that there was to be no landing on Spanish soil. At Cadiz the order had been observed. There had been no need to land. Here at Faro there had been direct defiance of her Majesty's command. He became so loud in his clamours that Drake found it necessary to lock him up in his own cabin, and at length to send him home with his ship to complain. For himself, as the expected fleet from the Straits did not appear, and as he had shaken off his troublesome second in command, he proceeded leisurely up the coast, intending to look in at Lisbon and see for himself how things were going on there. All along as he went he fell in with traders loaded with supplies for the use of the Armada. All these he destroyed as he advanced, and at length found himself under the purple hills of Cintra and looking up into the Tagus. There lay gathered together the strength of the fighting naval force of Spain—fifty great galleons, already arrived, the largest war-ships which then floated on the ocean. Santa Cruz, the best officer in the Spanish navy, was himself in the town and in command. To venture a repetition of the Cadiz exploit in the face of such odds seemed too desperate even for Drake, but it was one of those occasions when the genius of a great commander sees more than ordinary eyes. He calculated, and, as was proved afterwards, calculated rightly, that the galleons would be half manned, or not manned at all, and crowded with landsmen bringing on board the stores. Their sides as they lay would be choked with hulks and lighters. They would be unable to get their anchors up, set their canvas, or stir from their moorings. Daring as Drake was known to be, no one would expect him to go with so small a force into the enemy's stronghold, and there would be no preparations to meet him. He could count upon the tides. The winds at that season of the year were fresh and steady, and could be counted on also to take him in or out; there was sea room in the river for such vessels as the adventurers' to manoeuvre and to retreat if overmatched. Rash as such an enterprise might seem to an unprofessional eye, Drake certainly thought of it, perhaps had meant to try it in some form or other and so make an end of the Spanish invasion of England. He could not venture without asking first for his mistress's permission. He knew her nature. He knew that his services at Cadiz would outweigh his disregard of her orders, and that so far he had nothing to fear; but he knew also that she was still hankering after peace, and that without her leave he must do nothing to make peace impossible. There is a letter from him to the Queen, written when he was lying off Lisbon, very characteristic of the time and the man.

Nelson or Lord St. Vincent did not talk much of expecting supernatural assistance. If they had we should suspect them of using language conventionally which they would have done better to leave alone. Sir Francis Drake, like his other great contemporaries, believed that he was engaged in a holy cause, and was not afraid or ashamed to say so. His object was to protest against a recall in the flow of victory. The Spaniards, he said, were but mortal men. They were enemies of the Truth, upholders of Dagon's image, which had fallen in other days before the Ark, and would fall again if boldly defied. So long as he had ships that would float, and there was food on board them for the men to eat, he entreated her to let him stay and strike whenever a chance was offered him. The continuing to the end yielded the true glory. When men were serving religion and their country, a merciful God, it was likely, would give them victory, and Satan and his angels should not prevail.

All in good time. Another year and Drake would have the chance he wanted. For the moment Satan had prevailed—Satan in the shape of Elizabeth's Catholic advisers. Her answer came. It was warm and generous. She did not, could not, blame him for what he had done so far, but she desired him to provoke the King of Spain no further. The negotiations for peace had opened, and must not be interfered with.

This prohibition from the Queen prevented, perhaps, what would have been the most remarkable exploit in English naval history. As matters stood it would have been perfectly possible for Drake to have gone into the Tagus, and if he could not have burnt the galleons he could certainly have come away unhurt. He had guessed their condition with entire correctness. The ships were there, but the ships' companies were not on board them. Santa Cruz himself admitted that if Drake had gone in he could have himself done nothing 'por falta de gente' (for want of men). And Drake undoubtedly would have gone, and would have done something with which all the world would have rung, but for the positive command of his mistress. He lingered in the roads at Cintra, hoping that Santa Cruz would come out and meet him. All Spain was clamouring at Santa Cruz's inaction. Philip wrote to stir the old admiral to energy. He must not allow himself to be defied by a squadron of insolent rovers. He must chase them off the coast or destroy them. Santa Cruz needed no stirring. Santa Cruz, the hero of a hundred fights, was chafing at his own impotence; but he was obliged to tell his master that if he wished to have service out of his galleons he must provide crews to handle them, and they must rot at their anchors till he did. He told him, moreover, that it was time for him to exert himself in earnest. If he waited much longer, England would have grown too strong for him to deal with.

In strict obedience Drake ought now to have gone home, but the campaign had brought so far more glory than prize-money. His comrades required some consolation for their disappointment at Lisbon. The theory of these armaments of the adventurers was that the cost should be paid somehow by the enemy, and he could be assured that if he brought back a prize or two in which she could claim a share the Queen would not call him to a very strict account. Homeward-bound galleons or merchantmen were to be met with occasionally at the Azores. On leaving Lisbon Drake headed away to St. Michael's, and his lucky star was still in the ascendant.

As if sent on purpose for him, the San Philip, a magnificent caraque from the Indies, fell straight into his hands, 'so richly loaded,' it was said, 'that every man in the fleet counted his fortune made.' There was no need to wait for more. It was but two months since Drake had sailed from Plymouth. He could now go home after a cruise of which the history of his own or any other country had never presented the like. He had struck the King of Spain in his own stronghold. He had disabled the intended Armada for one season at least. He had picked up a prize by the way and as if by accident, worth half a million, to pay his expenses, so that he had cost nothing to his mistress, and had brought back a handsome present for her. I doubt if such a naval estimate was ever presented to an English House of Commons. Above all he had taught the self-confident Spaniard to be afraid of him, and he carried back his poor comrades in such a glow of triumph that they would have fought Satan and all his angels with Drake at their head.

Our West-country annals still tell how the country people streamed down in their best clothes to see the great San Philip towed into Dartmouth Harbour. English Protestantism was no bad cable for the nation to ride by in those stormy times, and deserves to be honourably remembered in a School of History at an English University.



LECTURE VIII

SAILING OF THE ARMADA

Peace or war between Spain and England, that was now the question, with a prospect of securing the English succession for himself or one of his daughters. With the whole Spanish nation smarting under the indignity of the burning of the ships at Cadiz, Philip's warlike ardour had warmed into something like fire. He had resolved at any rate, if he was to forgive his sister-in-law at all, to insist on more than toleration for the Catholics in England. He did not contemplate as even possible that the English privateers, however bold or dexterous, could resist such an armament as he was preparing to lead to the Channel. The Royal Navy, he knew very well, did not exceed twenty-five ships of all sorts and sizes. The adventurers might be equal to sudden daring actions, but would and must be crushed by such a fleet as was being fitted out at Lisbon. He therefore, for himself, meant to demand that the Catholic religion should be restored to its complete and exclusive superiority, and certain towns in England were to be made over to be garrisoned by Spanish troops as securities for Elizabeth's good behaviour. As often happens with irresolute men, when they have once been forced to a decision they are as too hasty as before they were too slow. After Drake had retired from Lisbon the King of Spain sent orders to the Prince of Parma not to wait for the arrival of the Armada, but to cross the Channel immediately with the Flanders army, and bring Elizabeth to her knees. Parma had more sense than his master. He represented that he could not cross without a fleet to cover his passage. His transport barges would only float in smooth water, and whether the water was smooth or rough they could be sent to the bottom by half a dozen English cruisers from the Thames. Supposing him to have landed, either in Thanet or other spot, he reminded Philip that he could not have at most more than 25,000 men with him. The English militia were in training. The Jesuits said they were disaffected, but the Jesuits might be making a mistake. He might have to fight more than one battle. He would have to leave detachments as he advanced to London, to cover his communications, and a reverse would be fatal. He would obey if his Majesty persisted, but he recommended Philip to continue to amuse the English with the treaty till the Armada was ready, and, in evident consciousness that the enterprise would be harder than Philip imagined, he even gave it as his own opinion still (notwithstanding Cadiz), that if Elizabeth would surrender the cautionary towns in Flanders to Spain, and would grant the English Catholics a fair degree of liberty, it would be Philip's interest to make peace at once without stipulating for further terms. He could make a new war if he wished at a future time, when circumstances might be more convenient and the Netherlands revolt subdued.

To such conditions as these it seemed that Elizabeth was inclining to consent. The towns had been trusted to her keeping by the Netherlanders. To give them up to the enemy to make better conditions for herself would be an infamy so great as to have disgraced Elizabeth for ever; yet she would not see it. She said the towns belonged to Philip and she would only be restoring his own to him. Burghley bade her, if she wanted peace, send back Drake to the Azores and frighten Philip for his gold ships. She was in one of her ungovernable moods. Instead of sending out Drake again she ordered her own fleet to be dismantled and laid up at Chatham, and she condescended to apologise to Parma for the burning of the transports at Cadiz as done against her orders.

This was in December 1587, only five months before the Armada sailed from Lisbon. Never had she brought herself and her country so near ruin. The entire safety of England rested at that moment on the adventurers, and on the adventurers alone.

Meanwhile, with enormous effort the destruction at Cadiz had been repaired. The great fleet was pushed on, and in February Santa Cruz reported himself almost ready. Santa Cruz and Philip, however, were not in agreement as to what should be done. Santa Cruz was a fighting admiral, Philip was not a fighting king. He changed his mind as often as Elizabeth. Hot fits varied with cold. His last news from England led him to hope that fighting would not be wanted. The Commissioners were sitting at Ostend. On one side there were the formal negotiations, in which the surrender of the towns was not yet treated as an open question. Had the States been aware that Elizabeth was even in thought entertaining it, they would have made terms instantly on their own account and left her alone in the cold. Besides this, there was a second negotiation underneath, carried on by private agents, in which the surrender was to be the special condition. These complicated schemings Parma purposely protracted, to keep Elizabeth in false security. She had not deliberately intended to give up the towns. At the last moment she would have probably refused, unless the States themselves consented to it as part of a general settlement. But she was playing with the idea. The States, she thought, were too obstinate. Peace would be good for them, and she said she might do them good if she pleased, whether they liked it or not.

Parma was content that she should amuse herself with words and neglect her defences by sea and land. By the end of February Santa Cruz was ready. A northerly wind blows strong down the coast of Portugal in the spring months, and he meant to be off before it set in, before the end of March at latest. Unfortunately for Spain, Santa Cruz fell ill at the last moment—ill, it was said, with anxiety. Santa Cruz knew well enough what Philip would not know—that the expedition would be no holiday parade. He had reason enough to be anxious if Philip was to accompany him and tie his hands and embarrass him. Anyway, Santa Cruz died after a few days' illness. The sailing had to be suspended till a new commander could be decided on, and in the choice which Philip made he gave a curious proof of what he intended the expedition to do. He did not really expect or wish for any serious fighting. He wanted to be sovereign of England again, with the assent of the English Catholics. He did not mean, if he could help it, to irritate the national pride by force and conquest. While Santa Cruz lived, Spanish public opinion would not allow him to be passed over. Santa Cruz must command, and Philip had resolved to go with him, to prevent too violent proceedings. Santa Cruz dead, he could find someone who would do what he was told, and his own presence would no longer be necessary.

The Duke of Medina Sidonia, named El Bueno, or the Good, was a grandee of highest rank. He was enormously rich, fond of hunting and shooting, a tolerable rider, for the rest a harmless creature getting on to forty, conscious of his defects, but not aware that so great a prince had any need to mend them; without vanity, without ambition, and most happy when lounging in his orange gardens at San Lucan. Of active service he had seen none. He was Captain-General of Andalusia, and had run away from Cadiz when Drake came into the harbour; but that was all. To his astonishment and to his dismay he learnt that it was on him that the choice had fallen to be the Lord High Admiral of Spain and commander of the so much talked of expedition to England. He protested his unfitness. He said that he was no seaman; that he knew nothing of fighting by sea or land; that if he ventured out in a boat he was always sick; that he had never seen the English Channel; and that, as to politics, he neither knew anything nor cared anything about them. In short, he had not one qualification which such a post required.

Philip liked his modesty; but in fact the Duke's defects were his recommendations. He would obey his instructions, would not fight unless it was necessary, and would go into no rash adventures. All that Philip wanted him to do was to find the Prince of Parma, and act as Parma should bid him. As to seamanship, he would have the best officers in the navy under him; and for a second in command he should have Don Diego de Valdez, a cautious, silent, sullen old sailor, a man after Philip's own heart.

Doubting, hesitating, the Duke repaired to Lisbon. There he was put in better heart by a nun, who said Our Lady had sent her to promise him success. Every part of the service was new to him. He was a fussy, anxious little man; set himself to inquire into everything, to meddle with things which he could not understand and had better have left alone. He ought to have left details to the responsible heads of departments. He fancied that in a week or two he could look himself into everything. There were 130 ships, 8,000 seamen, 19,000 Spanish infantry, with gentlemen volunteers, officers, priests, surgeons, galley slaves—at least 3,000 more—provisioned for six months. Then there were the ships' stores, arms small and great, powder, spars, cordage, canvas, and such other million necessities as ships on service need. The whole of this the poor Duke took on himself to examine into, and, as he could not understand what he saw, and knew not what to look at, nothing was examined into at all. Everyone's mind was, in fact, so much absorbed by the spiritual side of the thing that they could not attend to vulgar commonplaces. Don Quixote, when he set out on his expedition, and forgot money and a change of linen, was not in a state of wilder exaltation than Catholic Europe at the sailing of the Armada. Every noble family in Spain had sent one or other of its sons to fight for Christ and Our Lady.

For three years the stream of prayer had been ascending from church, cathedral, or oratory. The King had emptied his treasury. The hidalgo and the tradesman had offered their contributions. The crusade against the Crescent itself had not kindled a more intense or more sacred enthusiasm. All pains were taken to make the expedition spiritually worthy of its purpose. No impure thing, specially no impure woman, was to approach the yards or ships. Swearing, quarrelling, gambling, were prohibited under terrible penalties. The galleons were named after the apostles and saints to whose charge they were committed, and every seaman and soldier confessed and communicated on going on board. The ship-boys at sunrise were to sing their Buenos Dias at the foot of the mainmast, and their Ave Maria as the sun sank into the ocean. On the Imperial banner were embroidered the figures of Christ and His Mother, and as a motto the haughty 'Plus Ultra' of Charles V. was replaced with the more pious aspiration, 'Exsurge, Deus, et vindica causam tuam.'

Nothing could be better if the more vulgar necessities had been looked to equally well. Unluckily, Medina Sidonia had taken the inspection of these on himself, and Medina Sidonia was unable to correct the information which any rascal chose to give him.

At length, at the end of April, he reported himself satisfied. The banner was blessed in the cathedral, men and stores all on board, and the Invincible Armada prepared to go upon its way. No wonder Philip was confident. A hundred and thirty galleons, from 1,300 to 700 tons, 30,000 fighting men, besides slaves and servants, made up a force which the world might well think invincible. The guns were the weakest part. There were twice as many as the English; but they were for the most part nine and six pounders, and with but fifty rounds to each. The Spaniards had done their sea fighting hitherto at close range, grappling and trusting to musketry. They were to receive a lesson about this before the summer was over. But Philip himself meanwhile expected evidently that he would meet with no opposition. Of priests he had provided 180; of surgeons and surgeons' assistants eighty-five only for the whole fleet.

In the middle of May he sent down his last orders. The Duke was not to seek a battle. If he fell in with Drake he was to take no notice of him, but thank God, as Dogberry said to the watchman, that he was rid of a knave. He was to go straight to the North Foreland, there anchor and communicate with Parma. The experienced admirals who had learnt their trade under Santa Cruz—Martinez de Recalde, Pedro de Valdez, Miguel de Oquendo—strongly urged the securing Plymouth or the Isle of Wight on their way up Channel. This had evidently been Santa Cruz's own design, and the only rational one to have followed. Philip did not see it. He did not believe it would prove necessary; but as to this and as to fighting he left them, as he knew he must do, a certain discretion.