Half hours on the quarter-deck: The Spanish Armada to Sir Cloudesley Shovel 1670

by Anonymous

ADMIRAL BLAKE.

Governor Wyndham, who had charge of the attack, formed a blockade, barricading the roads with trees. A clever German officer who joined Blake made a dashing attack on Wyndham’s line, and broke it, which gave a short relief; but Goring’s forces came up from Weymouth to join in the attack, their track marked by every horror that can accompany civil war. Many of the inhabitants, to escape slaughter, fled before Goring to the besieged town, as to a sanctuary. Taunton excited the king’s party to fury; numerous councils were held, and various plans proposed, to effect its speedy subjugation. Their whole power was brought to bear upon it. Blake’s defence exhibited a rare combination of civil and military genius. The spectacle was one of the most remarkable ever presented in the history of battles and sieges. An inland town, without walls for defence, or any natural protection, surrounded by strong castles and garrisons, and invested by an enemy numerous, watchful, and well supplied with artillery,—the defenders successfully resisting the attacks persistently made upon it for months. This stubborn resistance paralysed the king’s power, and gave to Cromwell the opportunity, of which he took full advantage, of remodelling his army. The besieged town was surrounded, as by a wall of fire. The suburbs were burned and pillaged, and the outer houses of the town crumbled into rubbish before the continuous shower of cannon balls. The brave defenders suffered the pangs of famine, but Blake’s zeal sustained their drooping courage and continued resistance. One of his answers, during a parley, to a repeated summons to surrender, was that he had four pairs of boots left, and would eat three pairs of them before he would give in. Another time, when threatened that when the town surrendered, unless it surrendered now, all but seven persons found in it would be put to the sword, his reply was, that he wanted the names of the seven, and their bodies would be sent out. He and his brave comrades were almost in the last stage of suffering and peril when Fairfax sent four regiments to his relief, and the siege was raised on the 11th May 1645.

The country around Taunton was terribly devastated, and almost completely depopulated, and the spectacle presented by the town inexpressibly shocking. This remarkable siege, which lasted a year, attracted the attention and admiration of foreign military critics, who did Blake the honour of pronouncing Taunton the modern Saguntum. Goring, the Royalist commander, had sworn fiercely that he would take the town, or leave his body in the trenches. He did neither, but beat a sullen retreat.

Blake’s victory was a great triumph for Parliament, which voted him thanks, and a gift of £500. Although elected to sit in Parliament for Taunton, and now regarded as a distinguished national hero, he did not attend Parliament, or put himself in the way of the popular ovations that many would have courted rather than avoided. It is believed that he had no sympathy with the regicides, and reported, indeed, concerning his feelings on this subject, that he would “as freely venture his life to save the king as he had ventured it to serve the Parliament.” He was a practical and a moderate man, and a gentleman, and had only opposed the king, because the king’s policy and conduct had been, as he considered, unjust, and dangerous to Protestantism and the State. With the king in prison, and his cause defeated, Blake was satisfied.

It was not desirable, Cromwell and his party probably thought, that a man possessing, deservedly, such commanding influence, of such independent mind, and holding opinions so moderate, should be near the centre of affairs or intrigues. Some such considerations may have led to his being appointed to the chief naval command. He possessed in an eminent degree the higher qualities necessary in a naval commander, but their cultivation was commenced at an unprecedentedly late period in life. If he had commenced his nautical training early, and continued it during the whole of his life, he could scarcely have achieved higher fame than he did, though his naval career began at fifty years of age. He vacated his comparatively quiet post of Governor of Taunton—his chief duties connected probably with the rebuilding of the town—to assume office as “General and Admiral at Sea,” a title afterwards changed to “General of the Fleet,” and again to “Admiral of the Fleet.”

Blake’s career and history are unique; among its greatest men, the world has rarely seen an accomplished scholar, a famous general, and still more famous admiral, with such a splendid record, united in one and the same man. The scope of his powers, the strength of his character, his wonderful ability to adapt himself to his position and surroundings, the rapidity with which he acquired knowledge,—in a word, his master mind, were abundantly displayed in the command of a force, that employed a language and conducted operations with which he had been previously entirely unacquainted.

It has been conjectured that the Blakes of Somersetshire came originally from Northumberland, and that the “forbears” of the Northumbrian Blakes, Blackes, or Blaks, a Scandinavian name, hailed from Norway or Denmark.

Blake joined the fleet on the 18th April 1649, eight months after the revolt of a part of the fleet to the Royalists. His first expedition was against his old adversary, Prince Rupert, who had also taken to the sea, and whose exploits were not of a very dignified character, consisting of picking up merchant ships in the Channel, and conveying them to Kinsale harbour, on the south coast of County Cork. Blake blockaded the prince for a long time, but he contrived to escape, with the loss of three ships, and made for Portugal, whither Blake followed, and again blockaded him in the river Tagus. Here Blake seized the Brazil fleet of the King of Portugal, and afterwards pursued and harassed Rupert, hither and thither, in the Mediterranean. Blake destroyed the principal part of the prince’s fleet at Carthagena, and Rupert escaped with three ships to the West Indies. He had been sheltered for a time at Toulon, which Blake avenged by taking several French ships. This first cruise in the Mediterranean by Admiral Blake was the beginning of our maritime influence and ultimate ascendency in those important waters.

The admiral’s maritime operations were watched with lively interest at home, and the result of his first cruises to Ireland, Portugal, and the Mediterranean was to fairly inaugurate his naval fame. It had seasoned him in his new profession, and made him every inch a sailor. He very soon commanded the confidence of the men,—became among them, indeed, an object of almost affectionate adoration. The naval system of the time stood greatly in need of reform, and no man could have been found more capable and willing to effect needed reforms than Blake. His care for the wellbeing of the men, and his progressive reforms, commenced at once with his going on board. It has been said concerning him that “he was from first to last England’s model seaman. Envy, hatred, and jealousy dogged the steps of every other officer of the fleet.” The Council of State conferred upon him almost unlimited powers, which he exercised with masterly success, startling officials and others by his bold and independent action, and contempt for established routine and red-tape, when they stood in the way of what he considered the best means for attaining desired ends. With but slender resources he performed extraordinary exploits. He effectually suppressed Prince Rupert, and put an end to his freebooting performances, and next directed his attention to Sir John Grenville in the Scilly Isles, and Sir George Cartaret in Jersey, who were seizing and plundering homeward-bound traders. It had been an axiom before Blake’s time that ships were not expected to attack, and should not waste power in attacking, castles. He had no respect for the restriction, and brought down the strongholds that the piratical Cavaliers had established in Scilly, Guernsey, and Jersey. The unfortunate Cavaliers whom the civil war had ruined, who had found refuge in these islands, and occupation in plundering at sea, were thus dispersed. For his services Blake was again thanked by Parliament, and voted a thousand pounds. He was also honoured with the appointment of Warden of the Cinque Ports.