Her own counsellors were driven to their wits' end by her constant changes of purpose. Her troops were starving and in rags from her parsimony, the fleet lay dismantled and useless from want of funds, and except such arming and drilling as took place at the expense of the nobles, counties, and cities, no preparation whatever was made to meet the coming storm. Upon the other hand, Philip of Spain, who might have been at the head of a great Catholic league against England, had isolated himself by his personal ambitions, Had he declared himself ready, in the event of his conquest of England, to place James of Scotland upon the throne, he would have had Scotland with him, together with the Catholics of England, still a powerful and important body.
France, too, would have joined him, and the combination against Elizabeth and the Protestants of England would have been well-nigh irresistible. But this he could not bring himself to do. His dream was the annexation of England to Spain; and smarting as the English Catholics were under the execution of Mary of Scotland, their English spirit revolted against the idea of the rule of Spain, and the great Catholic nobles hastened, when the moment of danger arrived, to join in the defence of their country, while Scotland, seeing no advantage to be gained in the struggle, stood sullenly aloof, and France gave no aid to a project which was to result, if successful, in the aggrandizement of her already dangerously formidable neighbour.
Thus England and Spain stood alone—Philip slowly but steadily preparing for the great expedition for the conquest of England, Elizabeth hesitating, doubtful; at one moment gathering seamen and arming her fleet, a month or two later discharging the sailors and laying up the ships.
In the spring of 1587 Drake, with six vessels belonging to the crown and twenty-four equipped by merchants of London and other places, had seized a moment when Elizabeth's fickle mind had inclined to warlike measures, and knowing that the mood might last but a day, had slipped out of Plymouth and sailed for Spain a few hours before a messenger arrived with a peremptory order from Elizabeth against entering any Spanish port or offering violence to any Spanish town or ships. Although caught in a gale in the Channel, Drake held on, and, reaching Gibraltar on the 16th April, ascertained that Cadiz was crowded with transports and store-ships.
Vice-admiral Burroughs, controller of the navy, who had been specially appointed to thwart Drake's plans, opposed any action being taken; but Drake insisted upon attack, and on the 19th the fleet stood in to Cadiz harbour. Passing through the fire of the batteries, they sank the only great ship of war in the roads, drove off the Spanish galleys, and seized the vast fleet of store-ships loaded with wine, corn, and provisions of all sorts for the use of the Armada. Everything of value that could be conveniently moved was transferred to the English ships, then the Spanish vessels were set on fire, their cables cut, and they were left to drift an entangled mass of flame. Drake took a number of prisoners, and sent a messenger on shore proposing to exchange them for such English seamen as were prisoners in Spain. The reply was there were no English prisoners in Spain; and as this was notoriously untrue, it was agreed in the fleet that all the Spaniards they might take in the future should be sold to the Moors, and the money reserved for the redeeming of such Englishmen as might be in captivity there or elsewhere.
The English fleet then sailed for Cape St. Vincent, picking up on their way large convoys of store-ships all bound for the Tagus, where the Armada was collecting. These were all burned, and Drake brought up at Cape St. Vincent, hoping to meet there a portion of the Armada expected from the Mediterranean. As a harbour was necessary, he landed, stormed the fort at Faro, and took possession of the harbour there. The expected enemy did not appear, and Drake sailed up to the mouth of the Tagus, intending to go into Lisbon and attack the great Spanish fleet lying there under its admiral, Santa Cruz.
That the force gathered there was enormous Drake well knew, but relying as much on the goodness of his cause as on the valour of his sailors, and upon the fact that the enemy would be too crowded together to fight with advantage, he would have carried out his plan had not a ship arrived from England with orders forbidding him to enter the Tagus. However, he lay for some time at the mouth of the river, destroying every ship that entered its mouth, and sending in a challenge to Santa Cruz to come out and fight. The Spanish admiral did not accept it, and Drake then sailed to Corunna, and there, as at Cadiz, destroyed all the ships collected in the harbour and then returned to England, having in the course of a few months inflicted an enormous amount of damage upon Spain, and having taken the first step to prove that England was the mistress of the sea.
But while the little band of English had been defending Sluys against the army of the Duke of Parma, Philip had been continuing his preparations, filling up the void made by the destruction wrought by Drake, and preparing an Armada which he might well have considered to be invincible. Elizabeth was still continuing her negotiations. She was quite ready to abandon the Netherlands to Spain if she could but keep the towns she held there, but she could not bring herself to hand these over either to the Netherlands or to Spain. She urged the States to make peace, to which they replied that they did not wish for peace on such terms as Spain would alone grant; they could defend themselves for ten years longer if left alone; they did not ask for further help, and only wanted their towns restored to them.
Had the Armada started as Philip intended in September, it would have found England entirely unprepared, for Elizabeth still obstinately refused to believe in danger, and the few ships that had been held in commission after Drake's return had been so long neglected that they could hardly keep the sea without repair; the rest lay unrigged in the Medway. But the delay gave England fresh time for preparation. Parma's army was lying in readiness for the invasion under canvas at Dunkirk, and their commander had received no information from Spain that the sailing of the Armada was delayed.
The cold, wet, and exposure told terribly upon them, and of the 30,000 who were ready to embark in September not 18,000 were fit for service at the commencement of the year. The expenses of this army and of the Armada were so great that Philip was at last driven to give orders to the Armada to start. But fortune again favoured England. Had the fleet sailed as ordered on the 30th of January they would again have found the Channel undefended, for Elizabeth, in one of her fits of economy, had again dismantled half the fleet that had been got ready for sea, and sent the sailors to their homes.