A history of England

by Charles Oman

The Armada left Corunna, the northernmost port of Spain, on July 22, and appeared off the Lizard on July 28. On the news of its approach, the English fleet put out of Plymouth, and the beacons summoned the militia to arms all over the land from Berwick to Penzance. The Duke of Medina Sidonia had resolved not to fight the English at once, but to pass up the Channel to the Dover Straits, and get into communication with his colleague Parma in Flanders, before engaging in a decisive battle. This unwise resolve gave the English a splendid opportunity. As the Armada slowly rolled eastward, it was beset on all sides by Lord Howard's lighter fleet, and for a whole week was battered and hustled along without being able to induce the enemy to close. The great galleons were so slow and unwieldy, that they could not come up with the English, who sailed around and about them, plying them with distant but effective artillery fire, and cutting off every vessel which was disabled or fell behind. By the time that the Spaniards reached Calais, they were thoroughly demoralized; they had lost comparatively few ships, but every one of the fleet was more or less shattered by shot, and the crews had suffered terribly from the cannonade. At Calais Medina Sidonia received the unwelcome news that Parma could not join him. A Dutch fleet was blockading the Flemish ports, and the viceroy was unable to get his transports out to sea. Thus brought to a check, the duke moored his fleet off Calais, to pause a moment and recruit (August 6). But that night the English sent fire-ships among his crowded vessels, and to escape them the Spaniards had to put off hastily in the darkness. This manœuvre proved fatal. Some vessels ran ashore on the French coast, others were burnt, others cut off by the enemy. A final engagement, on August 8-9, so shattered the fleet that Medina Sidonia lost heart, and fled away into the German Ocean, before a strong gale from the south which had sprung up. His vessels were dispersed, and each made its way out of the fight as best it could. Some were taken, many driven on to the Dutch coast, the rest passed out of sight of England, steering northward before the gale.

Lord Howard's fleet was therefore able to sail victorious into the Thames, and report the rout of the enemy. It was none too soon, for the English ammunition was well-nigh exhausted after ten days' continuous fighting. They were welcomed by the queen, who had gathered a great force of militia at Tilbury, in Essex, to fight Parma, if he should succeed in crossing. Elizabeth had behaved splendidly during the crisis; she had organized a strong army, and put herself at its head, inspiring every man by the cheerful and resolute spirit which she displayed. Even had the Armada swept away the English fleet, it is unlikely that Parma would have been successful against the numerous and enthusiastic levies which were ready to fight him.

But the Armada was now a thing of naught. Forced to return round the north of Scotland, it was utterly shattered in the unknown seas of the West. The cliffs of the Orkneys, the Hebrides, Connaught, and Kerry, were strewn with the wrecks of Spanish galleons, and only 53 ships out of the 130 that had started straggled back to the ports of northern Spain.

The great crisis of the century was now past; queen and nation had been true to themselves and to each other, and the days of plots and invasions were over. For the future, Elizabeth could not only sleep secure of life and crown, but could feel that she might pose as the arbitress of Western Europe, since the domination of Spain was at an end.

Half-hearted foreign policy of Elizabeth.

But she was now too far gone in years—she had attained the age of fifty-six—to be able to start on a new and vigorous line of policy. Her old passion for caution and intrigue could not be shaken off, though they were no longer necessary. Hence it came to pass that, though England was strong, healthy, wealthy, and vigorous, she did not take up the dominant position that might have been expected. The queen persisted in her old policy of helping the Continental Protestants only by meagre doles of money, and small detachments of troops. By a vigorous effort she might have thrust the Spaniards completely out of the Low Countries, or enabled the Huguenots to make themselves supreme in France. But she refused to fit out any great expeditions; the expense appalled her parsimonious soul, and she dreaded the chances of war. Hence it came that in the Low Countries the Dutch established their independence in the "Seven United Provinces," but Spain continued to hold Belgium. Hence, too, French parties were condemned to six years more of civil war, which only ended when Henry of Navarre, the Protestant heir to the throne of France, abjured his religion in order to get accepted by the Catholics. "Paris is well worth a Mass," he cynically observed, and swore all that was required of him (1593). But he granted the Huguenots complete peace and toleration by the celebrated Edict of Nantes, and put an end to the civil war which had devastated his unhappy land for thirty years.

Naval war with Spain continued.

The chief efforts of Elizabeth's foreign policy during the last fifteen years of her reign were naval expeditions against the Spaniards. They caused King Philip much loss and much vexation of spirit, but they did not inflict any very crushing blow on him. The queen would never spend enough money on them, and generally allowed her subjects to carry on the war with squadrons of privateers. But the English adventurers very naturally sought plunder rather than solid political advantages—a fact which accounts for their failure to do anything great. A considerable expedition sent out in 1589 sacked Corunna and Vigo, but failed in an attempt to set upon the Portuguese throne a pretender hostile to King Philip. This was followed by a series of smaller expeditions to South America and the West Indies, in which Drake, and a younger adventurer, Sir Walter Raleigh, Elizabeth's favourite courtier, did Spain considerable harm, but England no great good. A larger armament sailed in 1596 against Cadiz, under the Earl of Essex and Lord Howard of Effingham. This force took the town, and destroyed Spain's largest naval arsenal and a great part of her fleet: a mere naval expedition could do no more.

Colonial enterprise.—Raleigh in Virginia.