From an engraving by Elstracke.
On Sunday morning a council of war assembled on the Ark, and it was decided to attempt to dislodge the Armada from its anchorage by drifting fireships among its crowded ranks. Combustibles had already been collected at Dover, but lest valuable time should be lost it was decided to use vessels from the fleet. Drake and Hawkins immediately offered two of their own ships for the service. Eight in all were collected and hurriedly prepared. Guns and stores were left on board, for there was no time to remove them. Captains Yonge and Prouse were entrusted with the dangerous duty of directing them, and some time after midnight they were fired and bore down with wind and tide upon the horror-stricken Spaniards. Everyone thought of what Gianibelli’s fireships had done at Antwerp only a few years before. Sidonia, seeing no help for it, ordered or permitted cables to be cut, and there was a nerve-breaking scene of disorder and panic. Ship collided with ship in the darkness, and there were many accidents. Monçada’s flagship, the San Lorenzo, lost her rudder; the San Martin herself was almost overtaken by a fireship before she could work clear. Still, the material damage was small. Wind and tide carried the fleet clear, and the fireships burnt out harmlessly. Sidonia, with the San Marcos, the San Juan, and one or two other ships, anchored as soon as they were clear, but the bulk of the fleet drifted away in a straggling line off Gravelines. The wind was about south-west, so that they could not easily close up on Sidonia. The latter therefore weighed to rejoin them.
At dawn the English admirals saw their foes scattered, but also perceived that Sidonia was endeavouring to reunite his fleet. At once they got under weigh and made sail, Drake leading the attack on the right, Hawkins to his left rear, then Howard, and then Frobisher, with Wynter and Seymour still farther back. All the accounts seem to show that the squadrons did not succeed in engaging simultaneously. The Channel Squadron came into action at least two hours after Drake.
It was now that the inexperienced Lord High Admiral committed a huge blunder. The San Lorenzo was seen on the right trying to get into Calais, and with a total lack of appreciation of his duties as Commander-in-Chief he turned off to seize her, followed by nearly all his squadron. He took and plundered the galleasse, and Monçada was killed; but for nearly four hours a fifth of the English fleet was absent from the critical point.
Sidonia’s pilots were anxious. They assured him that if the fleet continued to run before the wind it must go ashore. It was a crushing announcement, but Sidonia, to his credit be it said, did not flinch. Courage Spaniards have never lacked. Pinnaces were sent to warn the fleet, and the devoted flagship and her consorts swung round to face the enemy. In front, and nearest to Sidonia, the ever famous Revenge, flying Drake’s flag, was bearing down upon him, closely followed by three galleons of the Royal Navy, and for miles behind them the great English fleet was setting all sail and streaming to the attack. No time was to be lost. The Spanish captains knew the peril, and were coming back to the rescue of the Admiral. The English came on in stern silence, reserving their fire until the last moment, in order not to waste their already too scanty supply of ammunition. At sunrise Drake was within easy range of Sidonia’s little group. The Revenge fired her bow battery into the San Martin, and then, hauling to the wind, sailed past her larboard broadside, letting fly with every gun that she could bring to bear. Behind her came the Nonpareil (Vice-Admiral Thomas Fenner) and so, one after another, all Drake’s squadron filed past, cannonading furiously and holding on after their leader to beat off the main body of the Armada, which was standing out to the rescue of the admiral. Hawkins next came into action and fastened on Sidonia, but he does not seem to have supported Drake; and the result was that one by one about fifty of the best Spanish ships came into action about their Admiral. Frobisher apparently was in action soon after Hawkins, but the Channel Squadron did not come up till about 9 a.m.; and Howard, having wasted so much time, was not on the scene until past ten. The Spaniards were never really able to form proper order, and as they struggled singly into action they were attacked by whole English squadrons and fearfully mangled. Recalde’s division mostly found its way to Sidonia’s right, or weather wing, and upon it the English concentrated their fiercest efforts. The English cannonade was overwhelming. The crowded Spanish ships were mere slaughter-pens. Deserters declared that some of them were full of blood, but surrender was never heard of. They fought to the bitter end. The finest fighting was done by the Portuguese galleon San Mateo. She was full of veterans from the Tercio de Sicilia, and had on board its Colonel, Don Diego de Pimentel. She was surrounded by the whole Channel Squadron, and fought on, answering the storm of cannon-balls with musketry, until Recalde rescued her. An English officer, filled with admiration, hailed her to surrender; but the desperate veterans shot him, and cursed the English cowards who would not close and fight like men. The San Felipe, under Don Francisco Alvarez de Toledo, a kinsman of the terrible Alva, vied with the San Mateo in the heroism of her resistance. In one of the shifts of the battle the San Martin was out of action. She might have escaped, but Sidonia bravely went into the conflict again.
The English had to endure no such ordeal, but they fought with furious determination. The Revenge was severely battered. Wynter’s Vanguard fired 500 30-, 18-, and 9-pounder shot—a remarkable achievement in those days. But so completely had the English the advantage that, according to Vice-Admiral Fenner, they lost only sixty killed.
By three o’clock the battle was at an end. Nearly twenty Spanish ships were cut off (among them the San Martin, San Mateo, and San Felipe), all sadly shattered, full of dead and dying, and with not a shot left to reply to the merciless cannonade that was still pouring upon them. Nothing, it seemed, could save them, when suddenly a squall descended upon the struggling fleets. The English were forced to cease fighting to meet the danger. The crippled Spaniards, unable to manœuvre, had to put before the wind, and the combatants were parted. The Spaniards had no power left to fight. All that night they fled blindly, followed by the English, while their shattered ships went down and drifted ashore. Several were lost in this way, including the San Felipe and the San Mateo, and with the wind as it was nothing could save them from all going ashore.
A. Rischgitz.
CHARLES HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM, FIRST EARL OF NOTTINGHAM.