DRAKE:
OR THE
TRANSFER OF THE TRIDENT
A National Drama
BY
WILLIAM MAC OUBREY,
OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER.
“Thus saith the lord which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters.”
“The isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.”—Isaiah xliii., 16, and li., 5.
LONDON:
Printed and Published for the author by Arliss Andrews,
31, Museum Street, Bloomsbury, W.C.
1876.
Dramatis Personæ.
Drake (Sir Francis).
Earl of Leicester.
Lord William Howard, Earl of Effingham.
Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh.
Don Bernardino de Mendoza, Spanish Ambassador.
Sir Edward Killigrew.
Sir Edward Horsey.
Thomas Cobham, son of Lord Cobham.
Sir John Hawkins, Bolton, and Hampton, his Captains.
William Hawkins, Bill Carvell, &c.
John Oxenham, Thomas Moone, Sayers.
Comagre (Indian Cacique).
Chiruca (his son).
English and Foreign Spies.
Joe Jolly (Landlord of the Blue Anchor).
Lord — (General of the El Dorado).
Poet, (who sings the National Ode).
Sailors, Spaniards, Indians, Attendants, Page.
Queen Elizabeth.
Mrs. Ashley (her Chamberwoman).
TO THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE.
Brethren,
The first great object which I have had in view, in the construction of this Drama, was to bear my humble acknowledgment to an Allwise Providence, who alone could have developed the unprecedented might of the Anglo-Saxon Race—and who alone could have laid the foundations, or builded up, the giant structure of the British Empire—so vast, so rich, so powerful—unparalleled in extent, or wealth, or population—in arts and arms, in manufactures, in literature and laws, in civilization and commerce, in the history of mankind. Great have been the four preceding Empires of Prophecy! each, for its allotted period, having dominion over the Earth; but of none of them, as of England, could it be said “The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee.”—(Isaiah lx, 5)
Whilst I would put on record my own conviction, I would invite the attention of my countrymen to the assured fact, that no enlarged views of policy of our statesmen, no magnitude of our armaments, no superior science of our Generals, have wrought this wonder, for our race and country. The peculiar Glory of England is, that her greatness is the work of God! to whom is known from the beginning the destiny of his world and the means of carrying it out—when to put forth the fury of his anger and the strength of battle. Indeed! on taking a summary view over the wondrous past—over the steps in her career—the evidence is striking, that her success and conquests have been gained, without the aid or counsel—not seldom, in defiance of her statesmen, by inexperienced generals, and with totally inadequate means. That often her leading men and government have favoured to their utmost her enemies, and poured ignominy and vituperation, injustice and persecution, on those that served her, the valiant and the wise who have achieved her triumphs and her greatness. This has been peculiarly the case with regard to the great Actors with whom we are at present concerned, whose transactions and virtues we would illustrate, and of the age of which we have endeavoured to give “the form and pressure.”
It is impossible to doubt that the strength of England lies in her Navy—that her Navy results from her commerce—her vast and unequalled commerce from her manufactures; therefore that we cannot err in selecting the reign of Elizabeth, as the starting point in her progress. And examining closely the transactions and opinions, the struggles and changes during that reign, we may clearly discover, not only the truth of the statement, but the manner and the agency by which her success was achieved. It certainly was not by the statesmen—of these most, steeped in baseness and corruption, were ready to sell their services for direct bribes to the enemies of their Queen and country. Some were in the interest; of Spain, some in that of France, or the Queen of Scots. Those that were for their Queen were entirely wrong in their views and policy, which, if carried out, would have frustrated forever the prosperity of England.
All were at variance among themselves. The Queen differed with them all in her principles and policy. She loved her country, its glory and independence; and to secure these, pursued her own eccentric and mysterious path, urged on by impulse, instinctive, spiritual or Angelic, maintaining it with apparent self-will and unreasonableness, perverseness and irresolution, vacillation and caprice. But still, in proud and lonely grandeur, with unflinching courage and firmness, undeterred by the fear of war or assassination, “Semper Eadem,” against all opposition. She foiled with unexampled and unfailing skill, traitors and spies, and false advisers, and every species of secret or open foe, constrained to fence, deceive, betray, even to coquet, to save her country, her throne, and her life! She came through it all in triumph with the trident of the ocean in her grasp, acknowledged by the Nations, as the “Queen of the Sea, the Restorer of Naval glory.” Even the Pope (Sixtus V.) forgetting the policy of his faith, was struck with admiration of “this valiant and noble woman.” The name of her great hero, Drake (Il Draco) was constantly in his mouth, who, he said, “took the King of Spain by the beard,” and he ascribed the exploits which filled Europe with their fame to the high spirit of the Queen who sent him out.
The reign of Elizabeth is one of the most glorious epochs in the history of our Nation—a most important crisis in the Destiny of the World.
The Feudal system, which, with brute force, had trampled down humanity in its own blood, had spent its fury. That Iron Age was fast fading away. A brilliant dawn had unexpectedly appeared, of that Intelligence, which with the power of Science and Manufactures, Commerce, and the rights of Man, was to rule the world. Our great race, having “renewed its strength in the Islands” with the “abundance of the sea converted” to it, was now to go forth on its mission, and push its people to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills.
The Wars of the Roses, battle and the block, had consumed the Barons, the Knights, and the Men-at-arms. The Church, which had endeavoured to strangle Liberty and Thought itself, was now a crumbling and bloody ruin, shorn of its pomp, its authority, and its land.
A New Power was rising from the Sea, before which the Earth was to quail, and its despotisms to succumb. Elizabeth was the head, the Elect of Providence, to lead it forth into action, and the noble Spirits who were driven by the bigotry and persecution of the Marian faction to the liberty of the wild waves, as freebooters, were the accomplished instruments to effect its purpose. Light and Darkness, Liberty and Despotism, had once more entered on a mortal struggle, and the Ocean was the arena on which they were to fight it out—Spain and the Pope on one side, England on the other. That Struggle it is the purpose of the present Drama to represent, its Nature, its Conduct, its Agents, and its Issue.
We shall just make a sketch, take a view of the combatants who were to enter the lists for this great contest—as of yore, Rome and Carthage, for the possession of the world. Not to take into account the Pope, whose influence on any side was so vast over the minds of men; and which was entirely against England, Spain, whose own people were then the foremost military nation by sea and land, had also under her command the whole of the princes of Italy, the House of Austria with its vast connexions, the Low Countries, the seat of Arts, Manufactures, trade and Commerce; America—a New World!—pouring the wonderful wealth of its mines into her lap; lastly Portugal, and with it the Commerce of the East.
England stood alone against a giant that bestrode the world! and what was she at that moment? Weakened by civil war in many a bloody field—disorganized by misgovernment, divided by religion, and rival claims to the Crown—without a regular army, or her ancient discipline, without much of a Royal Navy, or the finances to create one. A girl of twenty-five, her presiding genius, by her own singular wisdom, without Statesmen whose advice she could follow—her very Cabinet Council in receipt of bribes from her enemies—war in Ireland aided by Spain—France threatening her through Scotland—thus distracted, to be invaded by the whole power of Spain!
Where were the Iron men who, a few years ago, swept France before them in every battle, though outnumbered by twenty to one, until they made it an appanage to the Crown of England? They were sleeping in their bloody shrouds on many a field like that of Touton and Barnet, or their bones had been stuck to moulder on City gates and Castle walls. In their days no one dreamt of invasion. But now! although the spirit of the men of a later day, who chased the Chivalry of France at the battle of the spurs, and smote down the might of Scotland on red Flodden, was still burning in the bosoms of their descendants, from many causes—such as the confusion in the succession to the crown, the decay of the Feudal system, the total change in military science, England without an Army, or sufficient Navy, or finances to create one, was quite unprepared for war.
Considering the vast odds, the success of Spain seemed certain—the ultimate triumph of England by herself, a thing absolutely impossible. The rational mind is constrained to the conclusion that it was the work of God for the purpose of developing the Anglo-Saxon race, a new ordering of the nations, and a new disposal of the possession of the Earth. All which directly followed, or is still in progress.
It is necessary for our purpose to take note also of the mode or means by which this mighty duel was carried on. Philip aspired to universal dominion; England was the great obstacle that stood in his way. His first endeavour was to obtain the hand of Elizabeth, and thus to become its king as he had been before. Failing in this, he tried to flatter and cajole her, by his Ambassadors and hirelings, into a belief that he was her friend, without whom she could not reign; whilst all the time he was labouring to have her assassinated—organizing rebellion against her by Jesuit spies—Then he tried more openly to ruin her Commerce and her Naval power, by seizing English ships in his ports, confiscating them and their cargoes, delivering over their crews to the Inquisition to be burned at the stake, or consumed by cruel treatment in his dungeons. Finally, he slily invaded Ireland, in order to wrest it from England. All this without a declaration of war. Nay! whilst his Ambassadors were pretending peace and amity. The English Government was paralysed, and it would seem as if our Commerce was to have been suppressed, and our very maritime existence stamped out in blood. England, however, was not left to a weak, divided, or corrupt Government for defence. The proud fierce Briton of that day was not slow to take his own part, or that of his county against any odds. The ships of Commerce went armed for war, and fearlessly flouted their saucy flag in the face of the foe, whose Royal Navy, in terror, gave them generally what Sailors call a wide berth!
Patriotic Nobles, Gentlemen, Merchants, and Adventurers, rallying to their standard the bold fishermen and sailors of the Western Counties, at their own expence, fitted out a Volunteer Navy. They covered the Channel and the Ocean with a swarm of Privateers, which not only securely defended England, but preyed fearlessly on the Coast and Commerce of Spain, plundering Churches, sacking towns, burning or sinking ships, crews and all, making prize of whatever was worth carrying away, and audaciously putting up to open auction in our seaports any Great Officer, Noble, or Merchant, who could find money or friends to pay his ransom. The tide of blood if not of battle was turned. Philip was not only frustrated in his object of Conquest, but became alarmed for his own. His losses were enormous, and even his military operations in the Low Countries were seriously embarrassed.
Drake, by his wonderful achievements in the West Indies and the Pacific, gave the finishing blow. His seizure of three millions completely crippled Spain. Alva’s army was in mutiny for their pay, and had Drake been allowed to pursue his own bold plan, Philip would have been driven from the Sea in a month.
These are the men who have founded the greatness of their Country, and base and ungenerous is the Englishman who, reaping the fruits of their valour, would withhold from them his tribute of grateful fame. Instead of that, they have been loaded with reproach and vituperation—called pirates! cutthroats! robbers!—whilst the atrocities of the Spaniards are entirely overlooked as if they were legitimate warfare, whereas our Volunteers with their cruizers were the only defence of their Country, and their acts, inadequate, but most justifiable retaliation. I have endeavoured to do them justice, I have summoned them from the dead to speak their own sentiments, and plead their own cause.
I have essayed also, as a most important task, to remove a vulgar prejudice, very general on the minds of both parties, and to do justice to the Catholic Nobility of England, who framed, and have in every age upheld her liberties and constitution against encroaching Popes and tyrannical kings. It is a common, almost universal, political error that the age of Mary and Elizabeth was a mere struggle between Protestants and Roman Catholics for ascendancy. Gardiner, the uncompromising persecutor of the Protestants, who desired to set up the Inquisition, and to extirpate heresy with fire and sword, was “fiercely jealous” of the independence of England, and when the Spanish Ambassador urged the marriage of Mary with Philip, he told him that Nobles and people were against the Pope, and against foreign interference of all sorts, that Mary could not marry Philip without a dispensation from the Pope, which must be kept secret. The country would not tolerate it.—(Froude, vi, 119.)
Queen Mary herself told Commendone, the Pope’s messenger, that for the present she was in the power of the People, of whom the majority mortally detested the Holy See, and that the Lords of the Council were in possession of vast estates which had been alienated from the Church, and they feared their titles might be called in question.—(Froude vi, 89. Citing letter of Pope Julius III, to Pole). Yet certainly there was not one Protestant on her Council. Paget, and he was not a Protestant, was the only man who favoured the Spanish match. But he was opposed to persecution, and would not permit the Queen to alter the succession. He told Gardiner that if she should send Elizabeth to the Tower her own life would not be safe for a single day.—(Froude vi., 120.)
The nation was unanimous in the dread of a marriage between their Queen and Philip. They feared that England might then sink into a Spanish dependency, and have to endure the horrors inflicted on the Low Countries. They wished to keep their country isolated and not entangled in the wars of the continent. They therefore desired that their Queens should marry with the English Nobility (Froude vi, 92), who were then as they are now, every way superior in family fortune, the eminent qualifications of mind or body—above all in social and political importance, to any rank or class of men in the world, many of the great Houses of the Aristocracy being allied to our Plantagenet kings, the greatest heroes, legislators, and rulers that ever governed men.
It is true that Protestantism, the right of private judgment, is favourable to Civil Liberty, as was evident in the struggle of our Puritan Fathers with the Stuarts. But the principles of the English Constitution were laid before Protestantism had a being or a name. Who were the men that wrung from the tyrant John the Great Charter at Runnemede, and many another after it, and maintained them in defiance of all the thunders of Rome?—Who passed the Statutes of Premunire, of Provisors, of Mortmain, and all the other Acts for restraining the illegitimate authority of the Pope and the Clergy, and defending their estates and country against both Regal and Ecclesiastical Despotism? The Catholic Nobility of England, who knew well how to distinguish between their Creed and their Civil Polity, between their duty to their Church and their duty to their Country, to themselves—to Posterity! And so long as that Posterity are worthy of the great inheritance they have bequeathed to them, so long as Englishmen shall be capable of appreciating Civil Liberty and the value of their Constitution, the founders of that Constitution shall receive their just reward, Immortal Glory!
Where is that Constitution now? Let the Protestant Parliaments that have legislated during late years, and regardless of our Ancient Constitution, have delivered over Englishmen to be taxed by boards, without the consent of Parliament, and to be fined! imprisoned! degraded! ruined! in their persons, characters, and fortunes, by arbitrary Magistrates, Councils, and Officials, without Trial by Jury, and who but for the timely protest and warning of the Judges, would have abolished that great Bulwark of Civil Liberty altogether. Let them answer! Let the great Thaumaturgists who pulled the strings of these parliamentary puppets, and before whom they danced, answer! England may some day awake from her torpor, to examine that legislation, and to ask the question—Where?—Then—What then?
Some people not sufficiently read in the history of those times, may be startled at the extraordinary nature of the facts which constitute the action of the Drama; and may consider them exaggerated, if not altogether improbable. I intended a National Drama, and I have adhered to history. I shall be borne out by authority. Those who are well informed, will recognise in the first Act the actual picture our seaboard presented at the time. The pious Catholic may feel scandalized at the treatment of the Pope, and the sack of Rome by the generals of Charles the Fifth at the head of a Spanish army. I have not invented the transaction. It would be impossible to exaggerate its atrocity. And Philip with all his zeal for his professed religion, so long as it subserved his ambition, was quite ready to repeat his father’s lesson, if the Pope had trespassed on his dominion. Further, though he was anxious to have Elizabeth assassinated, he was entirely opposed to the Bull of Excommunication, or the Pope’s interference in the temporal government of her kingdom.
With respect to myself and the literary merits of my work, I am very sensible of the little fame (as small as the emolument) that can accrue to me. It was not my aim to contest the palm of genius and eloquence with the great Dramatists of the age, who with so much talent and success, minister to the amusement of the Public. My humble effort must be regarded as a literary experiment—I was anxious to test whether Truth was not stronger than Fiction, and if so, whether the Drama might not, in abler hands, become the great Pioneer, if not the exponent and teacher of history. Secondly, whether it could not be conducted on principles free from the objections which Moralists now raise against it. I have therefore carefully excluded everything having a tendency to excite those emotions, which the wisdom of Philosophers, and the guides of society in every age have agreed ought to be kept in abeyance.
The Greeks, in timid foresight of the abuse, forbade that women should appear upon the stage. Without going so far I have shunned the evil they feared. There is not a love scene in my Drama, nor anything which could minister to that dangerous passion. I had a higher aim! to call the attention of my country to the origin and principles of her greatness; to hold up to her view the valour, the achievements, the glory of our ancestors; to excite in their descendants a generous rivalry, and to rouse again the national pride: the spirit and the patriotism of England. If I shall have succeeded in this, I shall have attained the summit of my ambition—I shall have reaped the priceless reward—the satisfaction of having done my duty!
I cannot conclude without my humble acknowledgment of the public debt to Mr. Froude, who has done so much to vindicate the character of Elizabeth and the glory of his country from the foul aspersions of a party alike hostile to England and humanity; and my personal obligation, for through his great History, suggesting the subject, and so much of the material for the construction of my Drama.
WILLIAM MAC OUBREY.