Complete works of a e w.., p.900
Complete Works of a E W Mason, page 900
The victors spread over the country, destroying, spoiling, burning, “so as you might have seen the country more than three miles compass on fire.” They returned to Coruña in the evening, laden with spoil and carrying before Sir John Norreys, their General, a Royal standard of Spain.
This was the end of the Coruña diversion. The lower town was reduced to ashes, and on the 7th and 8th days of May the troops were re-embarked and the guns which they had taken brought on board with their own. Fourteen days had been thus occupied at a time when every hour was of importance if a blow was to be struck at the heart of Spain. Four ships had been destroyed, a district ravaged of its harvest, a town burned. On the other hand, the port’s real defence, the upper town, remained erect, the English troops by their intemperance had prepared themselves for the sickness and disease which was always hovering over crowded ships, and the news of their presence on the coast was known wherever two Spaniards drank in a posada.
A council was called to decide upon the next move. There were two possible objectives, Santander and Lisbon. The wind, though less boisterous and less charged with torrents of rain, still blew from the west, and Santander offered the easier passage. It was known that some forty of the Armada ships were harboured there. Moreover, the Queen had expressly named Santander as a port not to be omitted from the attentions of the force. Yet the vote went against Santander. Drake argued that it was impossible to distress the shipping, if it were protected by shore batteries, unless the shore batteries were first taken from the land. Norreys supported him. If the siege-train, which Her Majesty had promised to contribute, had only been contributed, they would have been in a very different case. They had felt the want of it at Coruña. At Santander they would be helpless without it. Both men had made up their minds that they must lose no more time if they were to carry to success the chief object of the expedition, and they laid all the stress possible upon the danger they were put to by Her Majesty’s failure to keep her promise. Just look at Coruña! A siege-train, and the higher town would have come tumbling down like a house of cards. Ship-masters were called in to give their opinions, as if they were needed when the man presiding at the Council was he who had taken San Domingo and Cartagena and Santiago, and had dashed past the batteries of Cadiz. It had been Drake’s custom to listen to all and to decide alone. He followed the first part of his custom now, but he gave enough weight to their advice to include it in the written account of the proceedings. And again one wonders. Were these Masters and Captains brought into that council to bolster up the decision to which Drake and Norreys had already come? Or is it true that Drake had lost some touch of his old self-confidence, that his great masterful character was burning with such diminished fire that he was willing to leave so great a matter as the safety of his fleet to lesser men; They were called in, these experts — Thomas West, Master of the Revenge, Robert Wignoll, Master of the Nonpareil, Captain Saville and Thomas Drake; and one and all, holding that there was no safe harbour on that coast where such a fleet might ride in safety before the army should be landed, the wind being in the west, refused utterly to undertake its conduct to Santander.
On May 9th, then, the fleet sailed southwards from Coruña. Owing to the strength of the westerly winds, transports carrying two thousand men were unable to keep up and fell away to French ports in the Bay. But on the 15th the Swiftsure hove in sight with six prizes astern of her, three hulks laden with corn and wine and three pinnaces. The Swiftsure, after her flight from Falmouth with Essex and Sir Roger Williams on board, had made straight for Lisbon in accordance with Drake’s original plan. Obviously the Swiftsure had sailed from Falmouth before Norreys and Drake had been diverted to Coruña. She had cruised as far west as Cadiz and as far north again as the Isles of Bayona, picking up her six prizes as she went along. The wind hung still in the south-west and west, and it was not until the 15th of the month that the fleet passed through the Burlings channel and made Cape Carvoeiro.
At that point a council was held. South of the Cape lay Consolation Bay, with the town and fortress of Peniche upon its seaward point. It was determined to capture the fortress and march thence to Lisbon whilst Drake sailed on to the Tagus with the fleet. The distance from Peniche to Lisbon was forty-five miles. But there was one other suitable spot for the disembarkation of troops, the village of Cascaes at the mouth of the Tagus and only a day’s march from the city. A great deal of blame was subsequently laid upon the council for its decision. But it was not a hurried decision. Manuel de Andrada, the traitor, sent word to Philip before the expedition started, that he was at Drake’s house in Plymouth when the contract with Don Antonio was arranged, and that Peniche was settled upon there as the base from which the army would direct its march. There were definite good reasons for the choice of Peniche rather than Cascaes. The Governor of Peniche was an adherent of Don Antonio. If the fleet landed the army at Cascaes, it would be done in the face and to the knowledge of all Lisbon. On the other hand, if the army advanced by a forced swift march whilst the fleet was occupying the attention of the defenders in the Tagus, it might carry the town by storm from the landward side. No doubt, too, Don Antonio managed to persuade his allies that the Portuguese would flock to his standard the moment it was raised. There was no reason why they should disbelieve it. For neither Burghley nor Walsingham, each the possessor of a separate secret service, had given them a warning. The only hint, indeed, that the rose of Don Antonio’s dreams came not from the palette of truth was given to them by the Queen herself, who ordered that no force should be landed until they had made sure that it would be received with open arms. They had no means of making sure, however, except by trial; and on the 16th the trial was made.
The fleet stood into the bay, receiving a few harmless salvos from the guns of the fort as it passed. Below the fort was the only landing-place in the bay, and there the Spanish troops were stationed. But Norreys repeated the manœuvre he had successfully used at Coruña. Suddenly from the ships’ sides a flotilla of long-boats and galleys dashed to the opposite side of the bay, where the surf broke with so much violence over so many big rocks that no landing there had been thought possible at all. As it was, many English soldiers were drowned, many boats capsized, many dashed to pieces. But Essex and Williams were in command of this vanguard, and once more we must look to the Iliad for the way victory was won. Essex was himself the first to leap from the first boat into the surf. With the water up to his shoulders he struggled up on to dry sand. Cheered on by his example, others and then others followed him. They climbed a cliff on to a plateau of sandhills, and before the Spaniards could reach it, there were enough men landed to check them. And more men were landing every minute. The rapidity, indeed, with which both at Coruña and here large forces of armed and armoured men were disembarked from boats on unlikely shores was astonishing. They must have been well exercised in this difficult practice in the Sound of Plymouth. Williams now dashed forward with a pike, his vanguard at his back. There were some minutes of hard hand-to-hand fighting. On both sides men fell, and then the Spaniards gave. Peniche was an open town and no attempt was made to defend it. The English entered it unmolested that night, and on the 17th, Don Aranjo, the Governor and Captain, surrendered the fort — not to Norreys nor to Drake, but to Don Antonio, his King. No time was lost now. In truth, an unfortunate haste was shown. Too much reliance was placed on Don Antonio’s promises. Captain Bertie with two hundred men was left to garrison the fort; six companies of foot remained in the fleet with Drake; and the rest, nine thousand strong under Norreys, Williams and Essex, set off blithely the next morning, without artillery, without sufficient provisions, and with no more cavalry than the General’s escort, on the forty-five miles march to Lisbon. When the soldiers had departed, Drake left one ship and a couple of flyboats for the service of the garrison at Peniche and led his great fleet in the face of obstinate bad weather towards the mouth of the Tagus.
Meanwhile, what of Lisbon? An expedition from England was expected at some time, and it was known that there had been delays in fitting it out. Andrada and other good friends of Philip in England had seen to it that so much knowledge was conveyed to Philip; and by his orders Don Fernando de Toledo was commissioned to whip up an army for the defence of Lisbon. But that army was not yet collected. Until it should be the defence was left to his Viceroy in Portugal, the Cardinal Archduke Albert of Austria. He was an able and ruthless man, and he needed all his ability and all his ruthlessness to keep Lisbon under his heel. It was not that Don Antonio was esteemed — little more than his name was known — but Philip was hated, and people and nobles alike longed for their liberation from his control. It was the Archduke’s good fortune that the feudal tradition was strong throughout the land. The nobles must lead if the populace was to rise, and the Cardinal Archduke was quick to deal with the nobles before they had an opportunity of leading. Some he beheaded, some he clapped into dungeons, some he deported to Spain; and with the help of a small body of Spanish soldiers he trod the populace down under an iron despotism of which only this twentieth century of culture has shown the like. News of the attack upon Coruña no doubt had reached him. So much time had elapsed since the beginning of that unfortunate attack — it could not have been otherwise. But he had not heard of the landing at Peniche. He was not expecting the appearance of a huge fleet at the mouth of the Tagus. He had no more troops than could man a section of the walls. And had Drake sailed in on the morning of his arrival past the Castle of St. Julian and the Fort of Belem with the favourable wind which was filling his sails, Lisbon must have fallen. It was suspected in London at the time. It was known there afterwards. The people were waiting as the earth waits before a storm. It needed the flash of lightning and the clouds would have clashed and the gutters of Lisbon would have run not with rain but blood.
Drake arrived at Cascaes on May 23rd with the wind fair for a straight rush up either the north or south channel of the Tagus into the harbour of Lisbon. He had definitely promised “to meet with” Sir John Norreys at Lisbon if the wind was favourable. The wind was favourable. Yet he stayed at Cascaes outside the river bar. And upon that delay such an edifice of censure was built, so many accusations of cowardice and incompetence were piled up one upon the other, as affected gravely his good name at the time, and have not died away even to this day. Much of it, of course, was due to the disappointment which arose from the knowledge that the city would have fallen if he had. But that knowledge was in nobody’s possession at the time when Drake anchored at Cascaes. Nobody was aware that the city was seething with revolt. The Queen herself had sent instructions that before any attempt was made upon Lisbon beyond the destruction of shipping, “we would have you very carefully and substantially to inform yourselves whether the people stand to him (Don Antonio) as he pretendeth.”
The first step which Drake took was to occupy the village of Cascaes — not the fort; that held out until the 6th of June. He met with no resistance. His second step was to put on shore some Portuguese spies to discover what support Don Antonio was likely to receive, and secondly to get into touch with Norreys and his army. For he had heard nothing of the progress of the army. It had always been Drake’s belief, based upon his early experiences of Cartagena and Nombre de Dios, that a concerted attack by land and sea was necessary for the capture of a fortified town. He had tested his belief in the West Indies. That in this one case his ships alone could have brought about a surrender does not disprove the soundness of his belief. And his object was, while discovering the state of feeling in Lisbon, to secure a junction with Norreys. But there was no sign of Norreys, no news of his advance. Norreys had left Peniche on the 18th with forty-five miles to cover. It was now the 23rd. Drake must have expected to find him close at hand. The next day the wind had moved into the east and Drake could not have entered the harbour. He must beat up a narrow channel past the great forts of St. Julian and Belem if he tried the northern entrance, or past the redoubtable Torre Vieja if he tried the southern. The rate of the inflowing tide was three miles an hour. It could not be done. The opportunity had been lost, but the loss was due not so much to a failure of initiative in Drake as to bad staff-work and the inefficiency of the Intelligence services.
Norreys’ march from Peniche was a slow uninspiring business. There was hardly any fighting. A mixture of Spanish and Portuguese troops fell back as he advanced. Some sort of a poor stand was made at Torres Vedras. The name certainly did not win its eternal place in English history in the year 1589. Yet there were many casualties in the English army. Disease caused some, hunger more. On that stretch of forty-five miles, Norreys lost two thousand of his nine thousand men. He had started with a reckless lack of provisions, counting on the enthusiasm of the inhabitants and the plenitude of the harvest. But the country had been stripped for miles around. Forewarned by Andrada, the Cardinal Archduke had seen to that. Nor did the Portuguese line the road with thank-offerings for their liberators. Between Peniche and Lisbon only two hundred of them joined Norreys’ colours. Don Antonio protested that their abstention was due to the absence of the siege-train which Elizabeth had promised and not given. As if the poor peasants of that district knew a siege-train when they saw it! What they were looking for were some Portuguese nobles glittering with bright armour and gorgeous standards. But to that too the Cardinal Archduke had seen. Famished, the heart gone out of them and, according to Don Antonio, “more fit to die than to fight,” the army reached the western suburbs of Lisbon on May 25th. One wise measure Norreys had taken which had its repercussion in after years. He had strictly forbidden all looting. Everything down to the smallest quantity of food which was taken was only taken if willingly given, and then must be paid for. Even the houses in the suburbs were unmolested.
But he was in no condition to besiege a town. The Cardinal Archduke had blown up the houses adjacent to the city wall, so that there was no cover to assist an attack. One monastery, the monastery of the Trinity, had been allowed to stand, but the Prior was Philip’s man and there was no help to be got from him. On the night of the 26th the Spaniards made a sortie into the English lines. They were repulsed but no counterattack was made, and the next day Norreys, now short of ammunition as well as food, held a council of war to consider a retreat to Cascaes. Don Antonio pleaded for another day. Just one more day and three thousand Portuguese would have thrown in their lot with him! Norreys conceded the day, but once more Don Antonio’s hopes came to nothing whatever.
Drake at Cascaes knew nothing of Norreys’ appearance before the walls of Lisbon until the 26th. It is impossible to find the name of any liaison officer or to trace any system of communication between the army and the navy. But the moment he did get the news he prepared to act according to the plan. Disease was spreading through the ships as rapidly as through the troops. Nevertheless he made up, with the best men he could lay his hands on, the crews of the best two-thirds of his ships, and sent them to anchor at the mouth of the south channel, with instructions to sail on past the Torre Vieja into the harbour as soon as the first good wind made it possible. The remaining third should stay behind at Cascaes and hinder any movement from the fort. The next morning the wind did change. It blew straight into the harbour. He might suffer some damage from the battery on the Torre Vieja, and again from the Tower of Belem. He would be too far from the Castle of St. Julian for that seriously to hurt him. But that he could get through with the greater part of his fleet intact he did not doubt. He was, indeed, just getting in his anchor chains short, when a message was brought to him that Norreys’ army was in full retreat to Cascaes. He had challenged the Count of Fuentes to an open battle, but the Count, with four companies of Spaniards and four thousand Portuguese, was wise enough to refuse it. It is a sign of the lamentable condition into which Norreys’ army had fallen that on this short march from a camp outside the town to Cascaes four hundred of his men were killed or taken prisoners by a small Spanish force which hung upon its heels. A small compensation, “some comfortable little dew of Heaven” as Drake had once said, fell upon them the next day. For a Hanseatic fleet of sixty ships, laden with corn, masts, cables and other supplies of war for Philip which had gone all round the North of Scotland to evade capture, sailed innocently into the Tagus and were seized. The ships were new and well-found. The Dutch vessels which Drake had requisitioned were now allowed to go and were offered corn in payment of their use. But they would not wait. The wind stood fair for England, and with the sick and wounded disposed on board they set out gladly for the Channel. They had hardly departed when still more drops of comfortable dew fell upon Drake’s ships. Two of the victualling vessels hove in sight. Others had gone searching along to Cadiz, others as far as the Canaries.
But they brought, less welcome than the victuals, a bitter and ominous letter from the Queen. She thought that the Generals’ request for heavy guns and ammunition was “most strange.” Their first and principal action was to destroy the King’s navy and ships in ports where they lay, “which if you did not, you affirmed you were content to be reputed as traitors.” They had passed by Santander for Coruña, a place “of little importance and very dangerous.” She expected them still to destroy the Spanish fleet, restore Don Antonio and proceed to the Azores. Finally, Essex was to be sent home at once and Sir Roger Williams lie under arrest unless he had been already executed. “If you do not, ye shall look to answer for the same at your smart. For these be no childish actions,” she wrote, and again, “For as we have authority to rule, so we look to be obeyed!” The Generals must have been glad to realize how many leagues of water lay between them and that angry lady. Essex, who had been on the march from Peniche, was not unwilling to return home. He had no fears. He was sent home on June 6th, but though Williams professed himself ready to keep him company, the Generals were bold enough to assure Her Majesty with every deference that the Swiftsure and Sir Roger Williams were both of them necessary for the expedition to the Azores.
