CHAPTER XXIX
A BRITOMARTE OF THE ARMADA
The call was sounded. It rang through every ship like a trumpet note and every man sprang to his duty.
“On to the Dons! No Spanish Inquisition!” was the watch-cry of the English navy, and with great difficulty, for the wind was against them, they steered for the open sea.
It was not until the next day that they came within sight of the Armada. The most powerful fleet that had ever been known since the beginning of time. Blest by the pope, sent forth amid the prayers and the fastings of the people, the fleet had been cleared of every unclean thing, for haughty England who styled herself the mistress of the seas was to be humbled upon her own element and made to yield her lands to the foreigners.
The great Spanish ships, built high like castles and towers, stretched in the form of a 305 crescent measuring at least seven miles from horn to horn. They came slowly on, and, although under full sail, yet as though the winds labored and the ocean sighed under the burden of it, says Camden. When they reached the open channel Lord Howard discovered his policy to his men.
They were not to come to close quarters with the towering, unwieldy galleons, but to pour broadside after broadside into them at a distance and to bide their opportunity to fall upon them. Nearer and nearer drew the two fleets, the Spanish preparing to begin the action at daybreak. But at two o’clock the gibbous moon arose in a clear sky and showed to the astonished Spanish the English fleet lying in their rear just out of cannon shot.
The next morning Lord Howard, sending before him a pinnace called the Defiance, provoked the fight by discharging a piece of her ordnance and presently out of his own ship, called the Ark Royal, thundered upon a Spanish craft which he supposed was that of the Spanish Admiral, Medina Sidonia, but which proved to be that of Alphonso de Leon.
At the same time Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher 306 fell terribly upon the rear which was valiantly commanded by Juan Martinez de Recaldo. The English invaded, retired, and re-invaded them from every quarter with incredible celerity. The Spanish captain general was nonplused. The English ships ran in, doing as much damage as possible without coming to close quarters, while his lumbering craft were useless to chase and cripple so agile an enemy. The great galleons and galleasses of Spain towered beside the English ships like “Flemish dray horses beside light Arabian coursers.”