And John Hawkins, with a hearty “bye-bye” to the bystanders, waddles off with the remark, “We’re going to blow the Dons up now in earnest.”
“Night sank upon the dusky beach and o’er the purple sea;
Such night in England ne’er has been, nor e’er again shall be!
From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn to Milford Bay,
That time of slumber was as bright and busy as the day.”
Meanwhile the lordly fleet of Spain, swelling in white clouds of sail to the heavens, speeds on towards the shores of our threatened land.
Why, you ask, is the Spaniard bent on invading England?
Who does not know something of the exploits of the sea-dogs—how they harried King Philip’s territories in America, and how no treasure ship put out from the ports save in fear and trembling? Philip, the most powerful monarch of Europe, and the champion of the Pope, had been hard hit by Drake and his fellows. He saw clearly that unless England were crushed he could not retain his empire in the New World. Further, his Flemish subjects were in desperate revolt against him, and English troops had now joined them. How he hated England! She should bite the dust, and he would stake the whole strength of his kingdom, the wealth of the two Indies, the flower of Spanish chivalry on the enterprise. It was a Crusade—nothing less. The Pope had excommunicated the heretic Elizabeth, and the martyred Queen of Scots had bequeathed England to him on the scaffold. Holy Church would fight for him, and victory was already assured. So every dockyard in Spain rang with the hammers of shipwrights, and all Latin Christendom sent him volunteers. The sea was covered with vessels freighted with arms and provisions streaming to the mouth of the Tagus. Cadiz harbour was thronged with transports, provision ships, powder vessels—a hundred sail of them—many of a thousand tons and over, loading with stores for the Armada.
Drake begged Elizabeth to let him fit out a fleet and sail along the coast of Spain to see what was going on. Very reluctantly she consented, but ere his vessels were hull down a courier galloped into Plymouth with orders that under no condition was he to enter a Spanish port or haven. The courier arrived too late—Drake, knowing the mind of his mistress, had sailed, and recall was impossible. In five days he was at Cape St. Vincent, and a day later he saw before him the forest of masts in the harbour of Cadiz. In dashed Drake, with a fair wind and flood tide, past the batteries, which hurled a storm of shot and shell at him. He did not pause to reply, but pushed on, seized and sank the guardship, took possession of the Spanish shipping, and looted everything of the slightest service to him. Then he set the hulls on fire, cut the cables, and left them blazing beneath the walls of the town. He had, in his own pleasant phrase, “singed the King of Spain’s beard.” He had delayed the Armada for a whole year, and had spoiled his Catholic Majesty to the tune of a million ducats, without losing a boat or a man!
Home came Drake, begging the queen to let him play the same game on the Tagus, where fifty great galleons, the main strength of the fighting naval force of Spain, were assembled. But the queen would not consent; she would provoke the King of Spain no further. Negotiations for peace had begun, and must not be interrupted.