During the succeeding few days the fight went on amid storms and varying winds, the English admiral supplying his necessities of powder and provisions (and dire necessities these were) from the stores of the enemies’ ships which were captured, or which in their unwieldy manœuvres had come into collision, been irreparably damaged and abandoned by the Spaniards.
Knowing nothing of the coast the Spanish commander entreated the Duke of Parma (who lay at Calais) most earnestly to send him pilots. All through that long, running fight up Channel the English policy had been to avoid as far as possible close engagement; to worry the stragglers of the Spanish fleet; to snap up any laggards; and engage any which had out-sailed (as did the San Marcos) the main body.
Concerning these tactics the Spanish commander wrote to the Duke of Parma, “The enemy pursue me. They fire upon me most days from morning till nightfall; but they will not close and grapple.” Then the writer goes on to request assistance, and, more than anything, powder and shot, as his stock was running low.
At length, having traversed the whole length of the Channel, harassed by the “English bloodhounds, Howard, Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, and the rest,” the Armada straggled into Calais roads. There were missing vessels; and downcast hearts aboard most of the galleons which had won to Calais through the ceaseless English fire.
The Armada brought up on the edge of shoal water, which made it difficult to deliver such an attack as would best have pleased and served the English commanders. And so, after a consultation aboard Howard’s own ship, in which “Sheffield, Seymour, Southwell, Palmer, Drake, Hawkins, Winter, Fenner, and Frobisher assembled, with the fate of England in their hands,” it was decided to launch against the great Armada the fire-ships which were destined to complete “with the additional and saving grace of God’s warring elements,” the final destruction of the proud fleet of Philip of Spain.
Eight of the smaller vessels which had attached themselves to the English fleet were selected for the heroic service. Their rigging and spars were smeared with pitch, their decks and holds filled with all the most combustible rubbish to which hands could be put, and then, late at night, when “the tide—set directly down from the English position to where the ships of the Armada ... lay” the fire ships were loosed on their mission of destruction with their several crews to pilot them to their destination, when they were to lash the helm fast, belay the sheets, and set the vessels on fire.
Froude describes the scene thus, using as his authorities the letters of eyewitnesses, Howard, Drake, Winter, and other accounts now in the Record Office. “When the Spanish bells were about striking twelve, and, save the watch on deck, soldiers and seamen lay stretched in sleep, certain dark objects, which had been seen dimly drifting on the tide where the galleons lay thickest, shot suddenly into pyramids of light, flames leaping from ruddy sail to sail, flickering on the ropes, and forecastles, foremasts and bowsprits a lurid blaze of conflagration.... Panic spread through the entire Armada; the enemy they most dreaded was upon them.”
The success of the fire-ships was complete, so far as frightening the Spanish into putting to sea was concerned. Most of the galleons, after some confusion and damage, got clear of the shoals, and lay-to about six miles from the shore. Then when daybreak came, some were seen aground on Calais Bar. During the next few days the running fight was resumed, as at first the galleons strove to regain their former anchorage off Calais, but were driven along the Dutch coast, ultimately to speed northwards towards Scotland, with Howard, Drake, Hawkins, and the rest of the English captains in hot pursuit.
“Without pilots, in a strange sea, with the autumn storms prematurely upon them, and with no friendly port for which to run, he (Medina Sidonia) became utterly unmanned.... On, therefore, sped the Armada before the rising breeze, the English still following. Then as ship after ship became leaky or disabled by the ever-rising storm, and was abandoned with callousness bred of ‘a wonderful fear,’ what remained of the great fleet of Philip of Spain passed for a time out of English ken, and rushed northwards to destruction and dismemberment.”
Howard was at last compelled to abandon the chase. Froude tells us “the English had but three days’ provisions left, and to follow further so ill-provided, with the prospect of a continuing storm, was to run into needless danger.”