England under the Tudors

by Arthur D. Innes

Although strategically a great point was secured by this third engagement, the ostensible strength of the Spanish fleet remained virtually unaltered, and the English captains were evidently disappointed at having achieved no more marked results. Of course, on the theory that the odds were, professionally speaking, all in favour of the Armada, they had done exceedingly well; but they were fighting under the perfectly correct impression that the odds were in their own favour, and yet they had done no signal injury. In fact however they had accomplished a good deal more than appears on the surface. Their losses were far short of 100 men all told; their ships were intact; the spirit of the fleet had been tested; and they had already learnt and remedied the defect in their organisation at the start. On the other hand, the Armada had lost three ships, several more had suffered so severely as to be useless for further action, its ammunition was running short, some hundreds of men had been killed or wounded, and the whole fleet had realised that in manoeuvring capacity it was completely outclassed, so that its morale was failing. Already it felt itself fighting a losing battle. Whereas, when the Isle of Wight was left behind, the English were more confident than ever that they themselves were fighting to win.

[Sidenote: The Armada at Calais]

The Duke then made his course for Dunkirk, sending urgent messages to Parma to come out and help him: which it was not possible for Parma to do. On Saturday evening, without any further fighting, the Armada anchored in Calais Roads. The same evening, Howard was joined by Seymour's squadron, and for the first time his fleet was at its full strength. It now became his great object to force the decisive engagement before Medina Sidonia and Parma at Dunkirk could effect a junction. To this end it was needful to dislodge the Armada from its anchorage. Wind and tide both favouring, on Sunday night eight fire-ships were sent drifting on to the Spanish fleet. A panic arose; the Spaniards cut their cables and made for the open, to escape the danger. They were to suffer later on for this loss of their anchors. Now, when the morning broke, the great fleet which had successfully preserved its formation hitherto, was scattered along a dangerous coast, with the entire English force lying to windward within striking distance.

[Sidenote: The battle off Gravelines, July 29]

For the Duke, the first thing to do was to recover his formation; for the English, to prevent his doing so. Howard should have led the attack, but turned aside to make sure of a crippled galleon. Drake, followed by Hawkins, Frobisher, and Seymour, sailed down on the Spaniards, and the last decisive engagement began. Medina Sidonia was never able to bring more than half his ships into action. He gained some time, by Howard's aberration, but in the course of the day the entire English fleet was engaging him. The ships and the captains, however, who were able to rejoin him, were the best in the Armada, and they made a magnificent and desperate struggle. Raked with broadside after broadside they fought on, drifting into ever more dangerous proximity to the shoals, their hulls riddled, their decks charnel-houses; resolved to sink rather than strike; while the English poured in a ceaseless storm of shot at close range but always evaded the one danger, of being grappled and boarded, the sole condition under which the Spaniard could fight at an advantage. At last the English drew off; partly because their ammunition, like the Spaniards', was all but exhausted, except in Howard's squadron, the expenditure having been quite unparalleled; partly because a fierce squall for a time provided them with a new enemy which it took all their energies to meet. That squall was the salvation of the Spaniards; when it cleared, they were already in full flight to the North East.

[Sidenote: The Armada in flight]

The Armada was now to leeward of Dunkirk, and a junction with Parma had been rendered impossible. On the following day indeed, it seemed that the whole fleet was doomed to destruction on the shoals, when a change of wind enabled them to make for the North Sea, the main part of the English fleet following in pursuit, while Seymour's squadron, to his intense disgust, was left to guard the Channel. But for the English shortage of ammunition, which made it impossible to provoke another general engagement, half the Armada might very well have fallen a prey to the pursuers; for it was a fleet that knew itself hopelessly beaten; its morale was gone, its ammunition was exhausted, its best crews were much more than decimated, many of its vessels were hopelessly crippled. As it was, the English were content to follow and watch while the Spaniards drove Northwards before a stiff gale; giving up the chase on August 2nd, by which time it was evident that the enemy had no course open to them but to attempt the passage round the North of Scotland, and so to make for home by the Irish coast as best they might; though later, the wind changing to the North created a passing fear that they might return with it to Denmark, to refit.

[Sidenote: The End of the Armada]

In the whole series of actions, the English lost only about a hundred men and one ship. Out of that great Armada which had sailed with the Papal blessing to lower the insolent pride of heretic England, not more than half the ships found their way back to Spain. Of the sixty or more that were lost, nine [Footnote: Clowes, Royal Navy, i., p. 585.] only are definitely accounted for in the actual fighting. Of the rest, nineteen are recorded as wrecked on the Scottish or Irish coast: there must have been many more. Of their crews, those whom the winds and the waves spared, the Irish slew; and those who escaped the Irish, the English soldiery slew. Of the fate of the remainder, one-fourth of the entire fleet, nothing is known.

Dominus flavit, et dissipati sunt. The Lord blew and they were scattered. Small wonder that the puritan spirit saw in that huge disaster the direct intervention of the Almighty, smiting on behalf of His People. Yet the winds and the seas had but given an awful completeness to the already triumphant handiwork of the English Seamen. From first to last, through all the fighting, till the desperate sauve qui peut of the battered and shattered foe across the Northern seas began, no particular good fortune in the matter of wind and weather had favoured England. She had won, against apparent odds, because her sons had found out on many a venturous voyage how the great game of war by sea ought to be played; and her enemy had not. She had won decisively. Philip might stiffen his pride and boast that he could yet send forth fleets mightier than the lost Armada. But on the day of the fight off Gravelines the doom of his power was sealed; and the Empire of the Ocean passed from Spain to England.