AGAINST SPAIN
Spain's enmity—The Armada—Ralegh's opinion of tactics—With Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norreys—The privateers.
Indeed Ralegh's immense energy is typical of the time. Do it with thy might could fitly have been the motto of the nation. Their capacity for hard work was unequalled. The Armada was England's day of triumph. Men applaud a prima-donna on the night of her success, and are apt to forget the long years of training and privation and self-control that have preceded the glory of the moment. It is even so with a nation. The little hour of triumph is as nothing compared with the long years of life which made that triumph possible; and only the greatest artist and the greatest nation can bear the added burthen of success. England lapsed after the impulse of that great action had died away. The nation as a whole was too young and too boisterous with youth to support a victory so overpowering in its magnificence.
The triumph itself was like few in the history of nations, and events conspired to lend a vivid dramatic colour to its greatness.
The time had come when Philip the Second at last decided that the insolence of England must be punished. The exploits of men like Hawkins and Drake and Ralegh and Frobisher were becoming intolerable, and though Elizabeth had at first given no sanction to their enterprises, treating them much as she had treated the English supporters of the Protestant cause in France, yet the knighthood of Drake on the deck of his own ship at length declared the bent of her sympathy. The time had come for action: and the time seemed specially favourable to Philip. Sextus the Fifth was Pope, and he had created the league for the subversion of heresy, and the arch-heretic of Europe must be put away. The Prince of Parma was in the Netherlands ready to invade England. The Catholics in England would be united by the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Protestants themselves would be averse to the surrender of the throne to her son and his Scotch followers. So Philip thought, and slowly set the immense machinery of preparation to work.
Elizabeth possessed remarkable foresight and a remarkable dislike for definite action. Her foresight was as uncanny as an instinct, or her power of dissimulation, which is the art of diplomacy. Accordingly, it is probable that her efforts for peace, and the treaty which she patched up with the Prince of Parma, did not arise from any fear of war, but were a clever design to increase the proud confidence of the enemy by making him think that England was in reality in a state of panic, quite unprepared for war. She knew well of the preparations, and of their huge scale. Drake had sent news to Lord Burghley: "Assuredly," he wrote, "there never was heard of or known so great preparations as the King of Spain hath and daily maketh ready for the invasion of England." With daring he sailed into the very harbour of Cadiz and damaged more than a hundred tall ships. He was forbidden to do further damage. Spain's enterprise was not destined to be strangled at home. Elizabeth's fear, if her fear existed, allowed Philip to spend untold sums of money on his fleet, and to adorn it with the flower of his nobility, and allowed England to overcome her enemy in the full ostentation of his display. Certainly Lord Howard of Effingham, Admiral of the Fleet, knew nothing of Elizabeth's intentions, nor did Sir John Hawkins, the paymaster. They wrote angry letters to Walsingham when the movements of their ships were confined, and some of their men disbanded. "Never," wrote Lord Howard, "never since England was England was there such a stratagem and mask made to deceive us as this treaty." And Sir John Hawkins was even more vehement: "We are wasting money, wasting strength, dishonouring and discrediting ourselves by our uncertain dallying." Naturally they desired to repeat Drake's exploit, to run every risk, like brave Englishmen, and to crush the Spanish fleet in the Spanish harbours. But they must wait. Elizabeth's fears or Elizabeth's diplomacy (conscious or unconscious in its working a strange instinct for the good of England was here) determined another course of action. "The Queen took upon herself the detailed management of everything. Lord Howard's letters prove that she and she only was responsible," as Froude, who accepts the view of her perverseness and levity, declared.
Meanwhile the King of Spain's preparations were at length completed. The galleons, "built high like castles," had been baptized each with the name of a saint, St. Matthew, St. Philip, St. John, ceremonially, as it was fitting that vessels about to fight for the Catholic cause should be baptised. The one hundred and twenty-nine vessels of the Armada, galleons and galleasses, set sail. They were strong only in pride and in the sense of their cause's sacredness.
GENERAL VIEW OF LONDON
Their vessels were unwieldy and old-fashioned, their ammunition was insufficient, and their admiral was high-born but incapable. For the veteran Don Alvarez de Baçan, Marquis of Santa Cruz, had died suddenly, and his place had been taken by the Duke of Medina Sidonia. On July 19 the Armada was reported off Plymouth. Beacons lit from hilltop to hilltop flamed the news to London.