One can, therefore, easily imagine the excitement which seized upon the town on that Sunday in August, in the year 1573, when the news came from the look-out that Drake was back from one of his adventurous voyages, and, as a writer of the time says, “all people came rushing out of the churches, insomuch that there were few Christian souls left to hear the preacher.”
The same spirit which had made adventurers (and perhaps on occasion pirates) now made heroes, instinct with a high ideal of England’s honour and renown. Those were days in which Englishmen bandied no words with the Dons of Spain, but spoke with ball with the breath of powder, as the following instance of Sir John Hawkins’s treatment of the Spanish admiral who failed in naval etiquette will show. It happened that the Spanish fleet, some fifty sail, sent to bring Queen Anne of Austria from Flanders to Spain, entered (to quote Sir Richard Hawkins) “betwixt the island and the maine without vayling their topsayles, or taking in of their flags.” Sir John Hawkins, on seeing this, made no delay, but commanded his gunner to shoot at the flag of the Spanish admiral’s ship as a gentle hint of the breach of etiquette. Again quoting, we find “they (the Spaniards) persevered arrogantly to keep the flag displayed, whereupon the gunner at the next shot lact the admirall through and through, whereby the Spaniards finding that the matter began to grow earnest, took in their flags and topsayles and so ran to an anchor.”
As was not unnatural the Spanish admiral sent a boat to Sir John, in command of an officer of rank, to demand an explanation. The English admiral, however, promptly declined to afford any, and moreover told the Spaniard plainly that “as in the Queene’s port ... he had neglected to do the acknowledgement and reverence which all owe to another majestie,” he must depart within twelve hours whether in fair wind or foul, “upon pain to be held as a common enemy.”
It was to men like these that the fate of England could be so surely entrusted. For to dauntless courage and marvellous skill in the arts of seamanship was added the fear of God in their hearts, sometimes curiously obscured it is true, but in reality genuine and inspiring.
For some time before the ships of the Armada cast loose their moorings in Lisbon on May 19, 1588, and set out upon the conquest of England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the English fleet, under the command of Lord Charles Howard, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir John Hawkins had been collected together and marshalled in Plymouth Sound awaiting the news that the Spaniards were in the Channel. The ships had been chosen and “found” by men who knew what value to place upon sound ships, rigging, and fittings; and under the eye of Howard, Seymour, Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, and others who afterwards bore their gallant part, the English ships (some mere cockboats) which rode at anchor under the lee of Mount Edgcumbe, waiting for the advent of the enemy, and “straining at the cables to get at the Spanish Dons,” were made ready.
CREMILL POINT, PLYMOUTH
The Spanish fleet entered the Channel off the coast of Cornwall on July 19 in dirty weather. Up from the Bay the Spanish admiral in the San Martin had led the van, “showing lights at night, and firing guns when the weather was hazy.” On their arrival at the mouth of the Channel they found English fishing boats acting as scouts, and so the news of the Armada’s coming was first brought to land, and flashed along the coast by desperate riders, and at night by kindled watch fires. Froude gives us an arresting and detailed picture of the dangers which had beset the English fleet in Plymouth Sound during the period of waiting—dangers of exhausted provisions and depleted resources, which were (so the historian states) due to the parsimony of Elizabeth and some of her counsellors. Medina Sidonia summoned his captains aboard the flag-ship to decide upon a course of action. Whether they should await the attack of the English fleet as they proceeded up the Channel, or attempt a surprise and fall upon it as it lay in Plymouth. The King’s orders, however, were to make for Margate roads and effect the junction with Parma. So the great unwieldy galleons, crammed to repletion with men, priests, and treasure, made their way up the Channel slowly, and, at first, in order like the shape of a half-moon.
“Long before the Spaniards saw the Lizard,” writes Froude, “they had themselves been seen, and on the evening of the 19th (of July), the beacons along the coast had told England that the hour of its trial was come.
“To the ships at Plymouth the news was as a message of salvation. By thrift and short rations, by good management, contented care, and lavish use of private means, there was still one week’s provisions, with powder and shot for one day’s sharp fighting, according to English notions of what fighting ought to be.... All wants, all difficulties were forgotten in the knowledge that he (the enemy) was come, and that they could grapple with him, before they were dissolved by starvation.”