The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World from Marathon to Waterloo - Edward Creasy (best novels to read in english txt) 📗

class="calibre1">“Biscay, under the conduct of John Martines de Ricalde, admiral of the whole fleete, set forth tenne galeons, four pataches, 700

mariners, 2000 souldiers, 260 great pieces, &c.

“Guipusco, under the conduct of Michael de Orquendo, tenne galeons, four pataches, 700 mariners, 2000 souldiers, 310 great pieces.

“Italy with the Levant Islands, under Martine de Vertendona, ten galeons, 800 mariners, 2000 souldiers, 310 great pieces, &c.

“Castile, under Diego Flores de Valdez, fourteen galeons, two pataches, 1700 mariners, 2400 souldiers, and 388 great pieces, &c.

“Andaluzia, under the conduct of Petro de Valdez, ten galeons, one patache, 800 mariners, 2400 souldiers, 280 great pieces, &c.

“Item, under the conduct of John Lopez de Medina, twenty-three great Flemish hulkes, with 700 mariners, 3200 souldiers, and 400

great pieces,

“Item, under Hugo de Moncada, fours galliasses, containing 1200

gally-slaves, 460 mariners, 870 souldiers, 200 great pieces, &c.

“Item, under Diego de Mandrana, fours gallies of Portugall with 888 gally-slaves, 360 mariners, twenty great pieces, and other requisite furniture.

“Item, under Anthonie de Mendoza, twenty-two pataches and zabraes, with 574 mariners, 488 souldiers, and 193 great pieces.

“Besides the ships aforementioned, there were twenty caravels rowed with oares, being appointed to perform necessary services under the greater ships, insomuch that all the ships appertayning to this navie amounted unto the summe of 150, eche one being sufficiently provided of furniture and victuals.

“The number of mariners in the saide fleete were above 8000, of slaves 2088, of souldiers 20,000 (besides noblemen and gentlemen voluntaries), of great cast pieces 2600. The aforesaid ships were of an huge and incredible capacitie and receipt: for the whole fleete was large enough to contains the burthen of 60,000

tunnes.

“The galeons were 64 in number, being of an huge bignesse, and very flately built, being of marveilous force also, and so high, that they resembled great castles, most fit to defend themselves and to withstand any assault, but in giving any other ships the encounter farr inferiour unto the English and Dutch ships, which can with great dexteritie weild and turne themselves at all assayes. The upperworke of the said galeons was of thicknesse and strength sufficient to bear off musket-shot. The lower works and the timbers thereof were out of measure strong, being framed of plankes and ribs fours or five foote in thicknesse, insomuch that no bullets could pierce them, but such as were discharged hard at hand; which afterward prooved true, for a great number of bullets were found to sticke fast within the massie substance of those thicke plankes. Great and well pitched cables were twined about the masts of their shippes, to strengthen them against the battery of shot.

“The galliasses were of such bignesse, that they contained within them chambers, chapels, turrets, pulpits, and other commodities of great houses. The galliasses were rowed with great oares, there being in eche one of them 300 slaves for the same purpose and were able to do great service with the force of their ordinance. All these, together with the residue aforenamed, were furnished and beautified with trumpets, streamers, banners, warlike ensignes, and other such like ornaments.

“Their pieces of brazen ordinance were 1600, and of yron 1000.

“The bullets thereto belonging were 120 thousand.

“Item of gun-poulder, 5600 quintals. Of matche, 1200 quintals.

Of muskets and kaleivers, 7000. Of haleberts and partisans, 10,000.

“Moreover they had great store of canons, double-canons, culverings and field-pieces for land services.

“Likewise they were provided of all instruments necessary on land to conveigh and transport their furniture from place to place; as namely of carts, wheeles, wagons, &c. Also they had spades, mattocks, and baskets, to set pioners to works. They had in like sort great store of mules and horses, and whatsoever else was requisite for a land-armie. They were so well stored of biscuit, that for the space of halfe a yeere, they might allow eche person in the whole fleete halfe a quintall every month; whereof the whole summe amounteth unto an hundreth thousand quintals.

“Likewise of wine they had 147 thousand pipes, sufficient also for halfe a yeeres expedition. Of bacon, 6500 quintals. Of cheese, three thousand quintals. Besides fish, rise, beanes, pease, oils, vinegar, &c.

“Moreover they had 12,000 pipes of fresh water, and all other necessary provision, as, namely, candles, lanternes, lampes, sailes, hempe, oxe-hides, and lead to stop holes that should be made with the battery of gun-shot. To be short, they brought all things expedient, either for a fleete by sea, or for an armie by land.

“This navie (as Diego Pimentelli afterward confessed) was esteemed by the king himselfe to containe 32,000 persons, and to cost him every day 30 thousand ducates.

“There were in the said navie five terzaes of Spaniards (which terzaes the Frenchmen call regiments), under the command of five governours, termed by the Spaniards masters of the field, and amongst the rest there were many olde and expert souldiers chosen out of the garisons of Sicilie, Naples, and Tercera. Their captaines or colonels were Diego Pimentelli, Don Francisco de Toledo, Don Alonco de Lucon, Don Nicolas de Isla, Don Augustin de Mexia; who had each of them thirty-two companies under their conduct. Besides the which companies, there were many bands also of Castilians and Portugals, every one of which had their peculiar governours, captains, officers, colours, and weapons.”

While this huge armada was making ready in the southern ports of the Spanish dominions, the Prince of Parma, with almost incredible toil and skill, collected a squadron of war-ships at Dunkirk, and his flotilla of other ships and of flat-bottomed boats for the transport to England of the picked troops, which were designed to be the main instruments in subduing England.

Thousands of workmen were employed, night and day, in the construction of these vessels, in the ports of Flanders and Brabant. One hundred of the kind called hendes, built at Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent, and laden with provision and ammunition, together with sixty flat-bottomed boats, each capable of carrying thirty horses, were brought, by means of canals and fosses, dug expressly for the purpose, to Nieuport and Dunkirk.

One hundred smaller vessels were equipped at the former place, and thirty-two at Dunkirk, provided with twenty thousand empty barrels, and with materials for making pontoons, for stopping up the harbours, and raising forts and entrenchments. The army which these vessels were designed to convey to England amounted to thirty thousand strong, besides a body of four thousand cavalry, stationed at Courtroi, composed chiefly of the ablest veterans of Europe; invigorated by rest, (the siege of Sluys having been the only enterprise in which they were employed during the last campaign,) and excited by the hopes of plunder and the expectation of certain conquest. [Davis’s Holland, vol.

ii. p. 219.] And “to this great enterprise and imaginary conquest, divers princes and noblemen came from divers countries; out of Spain came the Duke of Pestrana, who was said to be the son of Ruy Gomez de Silva, but was held to be the king’s bastard; the Marquis of Bourgou, one of the Archduke Ferdinand’s sons, by Philippina Welserine; Don Vespasian Gonzaga, of the house of Mantua, a great soldier, who had been viceroy in Spain; Giovanni de Medici, Bastard of Florence; Amedo, Bastard of Savoy, with many such like, besides others of meaner quality.” [Grimstone, cited in Southey.]

Philip had been advised by the deserter, Sir William Stanley, not to attack England in the first instance, but first to effect a landing and secure a strong position in Ireland; his admiral, Santa Cruz, had recommended him to make sure, in the first instance, of some large harbour on the coast of Holland or Zealand, where the Armada, having entered the Channel, might find shelter in case of storm, and whence it could sail without difficulty for England; but Philip rejected both these counsels, and directed that England itself should be made the immediate object of attack; and on the 20th of May the Armada left the Tagus, in the pomp and pride of supposed invincibility, and amidst the shouts of thousands, who believed that England was already conquered. But steering to the northward, and before it was clear of the coast of Spain, the Armada, was assailed by a violent storm, and driven back with considerable damage to the ports of Biscay and Galicia. It had, however, sustained its heaviest loss before it left the Tagus, in the death of the veteran admiral Santa Cruz, who had been destined to guide it against England.

This experienced sailor, notwithstanding his diligence and success, had been unable to keep pace with the impatient ardour of his master. Philip II. had reproached him with his dilatoriness, and had said with ungrateful harshness, “You make an ill return for all my kindness to you.” These words cut the veteran’s heart, and proved fatal to Santa Cruz. Overwhelmed with fatigue and grief, he sickened and died. Philip II. had replaced him by Alonzo Perez de Gusman, Duke of Medina Sidonia, one of the most powerful of the Spanish grandees, but wholly unqualified to command such an expedition. He had, however, as his lieutenants, two sea men of proved skill and bravery, Juan de Martinez Recalde of Biscay, and Miguel Orquendo of Guipuzcoa.

The report of the storm which had beaten back the Armada reached England with much exaggeration, and it was supposed by some of the queen’s counsellors that the invasion would now be deferred to another year. But Lord Howard of Effingham, the lord high-

admiral of the English fleet, judged more wisely that the danger was not yet passed, and, as already mentioned, had the moral courage to refuse to dismantle his principal ships, though he received orders to that effect. But it was not Howard’s design to keep the English fleet in costly inaction, and to wait patiently in our own harbours, till the Spaniards had recruited their strength, and sailed forth again to attack us. The English seamen of that age (like their successors) loved to strike better than to parry, though, when emergency required, they could be patient and cautious in their bravery. It was resolved to proceed to Spain, to learn the enemy’s real condition, and to deal him any blow for which there might be opportunity. In this bold policy we may well believe him to have been eagerly seconded by those who commanded under him. Howard and Drake sailed accordingly to Corunna, hoping to surprise and attack some part of the Armada in that harbour; but when near the coast of Spain, the north wind, which had blown up to that time, veered suddenly to the south; and fearing that the Spaniards might put to sea and pass him unobserved, Howard returned to the entrance of the Channel, where he cruised for some time on the look-out for the enemy. In part of a letter written by him at this period, he speaks of the difficulty of guarding so large a breadth of sea—a difficulty that ought not to be forgotten when modern schemes of defence against hostile fleets from the south are discussed. “I myself,” he wrote, “do lie in the midst of the Channel, with the greatest force; Sir Francis Drake hath twenty ships, and four or five pinnaces, which lie towards Ushant; and Mr. Hawkins, with as many more, lieth towards Scilly. Thus we are fain to do, or else with this wind they might pass us by, and we never the wiser.

The SLEEVE is another manner of thing than it was taken for: we find it by experience and daily observation to be 100 miles over: a large room for me to look unto!” But after some