All had so far gone well with Spain; now all began to go ill. At the very time fixed for sailing the Marquis of Santa Cruz, the admiral of the fleet, was taken violently ill and died, and with him died the Duke of Paliano, the vice-admiral. Santa Cruz's place was not easy to fill. Philip chose to succeed him the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a nobleman totally ignorant of sea affairs, giving him for vice-admiral Martinez de Recaldo, a seaman of much experience. All this caused so much delay that the fleet did not sail till May 29.
Storm succeeded sickness to interfere with Philip's plans. A tempest fell on the fleet on its way to Corunna, where it was to take on some troops and stores. All but four of the ships reached Corunna, but they had been so battered and dishevelled by the winds that several weeks passed before they could again be got ready for sea,—much to the discomfiture of the king, who was eager to become the[pg 240] lord and master of England. He had dwelt there in former years as the husband of Queen Mary; now he was ambitious to set foot there as absolute king.
England, meanwhile, was in an ebullition of joy. Word had reached there that the Spanish fleet was rendered unseaworthy by the storm, and the queen's secretary, in undue haste, ordered Lord Howard, the admiral, to lay up four of his largest ships and discharge their crews, as they would not be needed. But Howard was not so ready to believe a vague report, and begged the queen to let him keep the ships, even if at his own expense, till the truth could be learned. To satisfy himself, he set sail for Corunna, intending to try and destroy the Armada if as much injured as reported. Learning the truth, and finding that a favorable wind for Spain had begun to blow, he returned to Plymouth in all haste, in some dread lest the Armada might precede him to the English coast.
He had not long been back when stirring tidings came. The Armada had been seen upon the seas. Lord Howard at once left harbor with his fleet. The terrible moment of conflict, so long and nervously awaited, was at hand. On the next day—July 30—he came in view of the great Spanish fleet, drawn up in the form of a crescent, with a space of seven miles between its wings. Before this giant fleet his own seemed but a dwarf. Paying no attention to Lord Howard's ships, the Armada moved on with dignity up the Channel, its purpose being to disperse the Dutch and English ships off the Netherland coast[pg 241] and escort to England the Duke of Parma's army, then ready to sail.
Lord Howard deemed it wisest to pursue a guerilla mode of warfare, harassing the Spaniards and taking any advantage that offered. He first attacked the flag-ship of the vice-admiral Recaldo, and with such vigor and dexterity as to excite great alarm in the Spanish fleet. From that time it kept closer order, yet on the same day Howard attacked one of its largest ships. Others hurried to the aid; but in their haste two of them ran afoul, one, a large galleon, having her mast broken. She fell behind and was captured by Sir Francis Drake, who discovered, to his delight, that she had on board a chief part of the Spanish treasure.
Other combats took place, in all of which the English were victorious. The Spaniards proved ignorant of marine evolutions, and the English sailed around them with a velocity which none of their ships could equal, and proved so much better marksmen that nearly every shot told, while the Spanish gunners fired high and wasted their balls in the air. The fight with the Armada seemed a prototype of the much later sea-battles at Manila and Santiago de Cuba.
Finally, after a halt before Calais, the Armada came within sight of Dunkirk, where Parma's army, with its flat-bottomed transports, was waiting to embark. Here a calm fell upon the fleets, and they remained motionless for a whole day. But about midnight a breeze sprang up and Lord Howard put into effect a scheme he had devised the previous day.[pg 242] He had made a number of fire-ships by filling eight vessels with pitch, sulphur, and other combustibles, and these were now set on fire and sent down the wind against the Spanish fleet.
It was with terror that the Spaniards beheld the coming of these flaming ships. They remembered vividly the havoc occasioned by fire-ships at the siege of Antwerp. The darkness of the night added to their fears, and panic spread from end to end of the fleet. All discipline vanished; self-preservation was the sole thought of each crew. Some took time to weigh their anchors, but others, in wild haste, cut their cables, and soon the ships were driving blindly before the wind, some running afoul of each other and being completely disabled by the shock.
When day dawned Lord Howard saw with the highest satisfaction the results of his stratagem. The Spanish fleet was in the utmost disorder, its ships widely dispersed. His own fleet had just been strengthened, and he at once made an impetuous attack upon the scattered Armada. The battle began at four in the morning and lasted till six in the evening, the Spaniards fighting with great bravery but doing little execution. Many of their ships were greatly damaged, and ten of the largest were sunk, run aground, or captured. The principal galeas, or large galley, manned with three hundred galley slaves and having on board four hundred soldiers, was driven ashore near Calais, and nearly all the Spaniards were killed or drowned in attempting to reach land. The rowers were set at liberty.
The Spanish admiral was greatly dejected by this[pg 243] series of misfortunes. As yet the English had lost but one small ship and about one hundred men, while his losses had been so severe that he began to dread the destruction of the entire fleet. He could not without great danger remain where he was. His ships were too large to approach nearer to the coast of Flanders. Philip had declined to secure a suitable harbor in Zealand, as advised. The Armada was a great and clumsy giant, from which Lord Howard's much smaller fleet had not fled in terror, as had been expected, and which now was in such a condition that there was nothing left for it but to try and return to Spain.