  THE ENGLISH AND THE DUTCH TRIUMPH OVER SPAIN Cruel Treatment of the Netherlanders. Two years after the cruel massacre of the Huguenot colony in Florida, Philip II, the King of Spain, decided to put an end to the obstinacy of the Netherlanders, and sent an army from Spain commanded by the Duke of Alva, who was as pitiless as Menendez. Alva began by seizing prominent nobles, and he would have arrested the Prince of Orange, but he escaped into Germany. A court was set up which condemned many persons to death, including the greatest nobles of the land. The people nicknamed it the Council of Blood. Alva also turned the merchants against him by compelling them to pay the "tenth penny," that is, one tenth of the price of the goods every time these were either bought or sold. Alva made himself so thoroughly hated that even Philip decided to call him back to Spain. The Beggars of the Sea. Just then something happened which gave Coligny and the Huguenots their chance for vengeance. The men who were resisting the king's officers in the Netherlands had been nicknamed the "Beggars." When they were driven from the cities they took to the sea. The "Beggars of the Sea" sometimes found a port of refuge in La Rochelle, a Huguenot town on the western coast of France, and sometimes they put into friendly English harbors. From these places they would sail out and attack Spanish vessels. When Queen Elizabeth in 1572 ordered a fleet of these "Beggars" to leave, they crossed over to their own shores and drove the Spanish garrison out of Brille. This success encouraged the Dutch and many of the southern Netherlanders to rise and expel the Spanish soldiers from their towns. The French promise Aid. As soon as Coligny heard the news he urged the French king to send an army into the Netherlands and take vengeance not only for the massacre at Fort Caroline, but also for all the wrongs that he and his father and his grandfather had ever received at the hands of the Spaniards. The French king agreed and wrote a letter to the Netherlanders promising aid.
Massacre of Huguenots in Paris. The plan was never carried out. While Coligny and many other Huguenots were in Paris, his enemies attempted to kill him. When the attempt failed these enemies, including the king's mother, persuaded the king that Coligny and the Huguenots were plotting against him, and goaded the king into ordering the murder of all the Huguenots in Paris and the other cities of France. Thousands of Huguenots perished. When the Netherlanders heard of what had befallen Coligny and his followers, they were crushed with grief. Coligny had missed the chance of vengeance. But the Spanish king was soon to have other enemies besides the Huguenots who were ready to help the Dutch. These new enemies were the English. The English drawn into the Conflict. The religious troubles in England had been growing more serious. Two or three plots were made to assassinate Elizabeth in order to put on the throne Queen Mary of Scotland, who was the next heir. Philip began to encourage these plotters, especially after the pope in 1570 had excommunicated Elizabeth and forbidden her subjects to obey her as queen. She was sure to be dragged into the struggle in the Netherlands sooner or later. We have seen that she had once sheltered the "Beggars of the Sea." The murder of Coligny and his followers frightened the English and made many of them anxious to join in the conflict before their friends on the Continent, the French Huguenots and the Dutch Calvinists, were utterly destroyed. Growth of English Trade. If England should be drawn into war, her safety would depend mainly upon her ships. Englishmen had always taken to the sea, as was natural for men whose shores were washed by the Atlantic, the Channel and the North Sea, but they were slow in building fleets of ships either for trade or for war. The trade of the country with other peoples in the Middle Ages was carried on mostly by foreigners. Yet since the days of Elizabeth's father and grandfather a change had taken place. English merchants found their way to all markets. They also made new things to sell. Refugees driven by the religious troubles from France and the Netherlands brought their skill to England and taught the English how to weave fine woolens and silks. The new English Navy. The English navy was growing. One of the new ships, The Triumph, carried 450 seamen, 50 gunners, and 200 soldiers. Besides harquebuses for the soldiers, there were many kinds of cannon with strange names, such as culverins, falconets, sakers, serpentines, and rabinets. Four of the cannon were large enough to shoot a cannon-ball eight inches in diameter. But it was on the skill and courage of her men rather than upon the size of her ships that England relied for victory.
Sir Francis Drake. One of these men was Francis Drake. He was son of a chaplain in the navy and as a boy played in the rigging of the great ships-of-war, as other boys play in the streets. In time young Drake was apprenticed to the skipper of a small trading vessel. Fortune smiled on the lad early in life. His master died, and out of love for the apprentice who had served him so well, left him the vessel. Francis Drake became thus a shipmaster on his own account, and in time the most popular of Queen Elizabeth's sea-captains. Slave-Traders. He often went with his cousin, John Hawkins, on voyages to Africa. They bought negro slaves from slave-traders along the coast, or kidnaped negroes whom they found, and carried them to the Spanish planters of the West Indies. Hawkins and Drake were as devout and humane as other men of their time. They simply could not see any wrong in enslaving the heathen black men in Africa. Besides, they enjoyed the wild life of the slave-trader with its dangers and rich rewards. Why Drake hated the Spaniards. The king of Spain tried to keep the trade in slaves for his own merchants, and attempted to prevent the trade of the English slavers with the West Indies. Spanish ships-of-war ruined one of the voyages from which Hawkins and Drake hoped for large profits. The Spaniards won thereby the undying hatred of Drake. The Dragon of the Seas. It was a time, too, when Drake's countrymen at home shared his intense hatred of the Spaniard. While England and Spain were not at war with one another, English and Spanish traders fought whenever they met on the high seas. The English made the Spanish settlements in America their special prey. At certain times of the year Spanish ships, called government ships, carried to Spain gold and silver--the royal share of the products of America. Drake, like many another of his countrymen, lay in wait to rob these ships of their precious cargoes. He managed to gather a fortune by his cunning and courage. More than once he was forced to bury his treasures in the sand to lighten his ships that they might sail the faster, and escape his pursuers. The Spaniards came to know and to fear Drake as the Dragon of the Seas.
Drake's Venture. Drake once formed the plan to take a fleet into the Pacific Ocean in order to plunder the treasure ships where they would be less on their guard. A fleet of five ships was made ready. Contributions from wealthy merchants and powerful nobles, perhaps a gift from Queen Elizabeth herself, gave him the means for unusual luxuries in the equipment of his fleet. Skilful musicians and rich furniture were taken on board Drake's own ship, the Pelican, or the Golden Hind as he afterwards christened it. The brilliant little fleet left Plymouth in 1577. One after another of the ships turned back or was destroyed on the long voyage of twelve months across the Atlantic and through the Strait of Magellan. Beyond the Strait of Magellan. The Golden Hind alone remained to carry out the original project. As it entered the Pacific Ocean a furious storm drove the little vessel southward beyond Cape Horn to the regions where the oceans meet. No one before had sailed so far south. The first Prizes. Drake regained control of his ship when the storm had passed, and sailed northward along the coast, plundering and robbing as he went. Once, as a land-party was searching along the shore for fresh water, it came upon a Spaniard asleep with thirteen bars of silver beside him. His nap was disturbed long enough to take away his burden. Further on they met another Spaniard and an Indian boy driving a train of Peruvian sheep laden with eight hundred pounds of silver. The Englishmen took their place, and merrily drove the sheep to their boats. A treasure ship, nicknamed the Spitfire, on the way to Panama, was captured after a long chase of nearly eight hundred miles. Drake obtained from it unknown quantities of gold and silver. With such a rich load, his thoughts turned to the homeward voyage. Drake's Voyage around the World. By this time a host of Spanish war-ships were on Drake's track. They expected to capture him on his return through the Strait of Magellan. Drake, now confronted with real danger, cunningly outwitted his enemies. He and many other Englishmen of his day were sure a passage would be found somewhere through North America between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Spanish, French, and English explorers had all carried on the search for this passage. Drake decided to return by such a route, if it were possible. He followed the coast of California, and probably passed that of Oregon and Washington as far as Vancouver.
When it grew colder and the coast turned to the westward, he gave up the search. After making some needed repairs in a small harbor a few miles above the modern San Francisco, Drake set out boldly across the Pacific to return home, as Magellan's men had done before him, by going around the world. He touched at the Philippines, visited the Spice Islands, and slowly worked his way around the Cape of Good Hope. The Golden Hind, long since given up as lost, reached England in the fall of 1580, after nearly three years' absence. For a second time a ship had sailed around the world. Drake was the first Englishman to gain the honor. Drake's Reward. Queen Elizabeth liked the story Drake told of outwitting and plundering Spaniards. Arrayed in her most gorgeous robes she visited his ship, where a banquet had been prepared. While Drake knelt at her feet she made him a knight. And so it was that the man whom the Spaniards called with good reason the Master Thief of the Seas, the English called by a new title, Sir Francis Drake, and praised as the greatest sea-captain of the age. His ship, the Golden Hind, was ordered to be preserved forever. The Dutch Struggle against Spain. A few years after Drake returned the English took a deeper interest in the struggle between Philip and the Dutch. Although the Dutch had lost hope of help from the French Huguenots, they resisted Philip's generals more boldly than ever. The Spanish soldiers treated the towns which surrendered so savagely that the other towns decided it was better to die fighting than to yield. The siege of Leyden became famous because, after food had given out and the inhabitants were starving their friends cut the great dikes in order that the boats of the "Beggars of the Sea" loaded with provisions might be floated up to the very walls of the city. This unexpected flood also drove away the Spaniards. Fortunately after the rescue of the city a strong wind arose and drove back the waves so that the dikes could again be replaced.
The Death of William of Orange. King Philip had come to the conclusion that unless William of Orange were killed the Dutch could not be conquered, and so he put a price on Prince William's head, offering a large sum of money to any one who should kill him. The first attempts failed, but finally in 1584 he was shot. Sir Philip Sidney. The murder of William alarmed the English for Elizabeth's life, especially as Philip had already aided men who were plotting against her. She sent an army into the Netherlands to aid the Dutch, although she had not made up her mind to attack Philip directly. The army did not give much help to the Dutch, but it is remembered because a noble English poet, Sir Philip Sidney, was mortally wounded in one of the battles. The story is told that while Sidney was riding back, tortured by his wound, he became very thirsty, as wounded men always do, and begged for a drink of water. Looking up when it was brought to him he saw on the ground a common soldier more sorely wounded than he. He immediately sent the water to the soldier saying, "Thy necessity is greater than mine." The Invincible Armada. The king of Spain now decided that he could not subdue the Dutch until he had thoroughly punished the English. He even planned to put himself upon the English throne, claiming that he was the heir of one of the early kings of England. Months were spent in preparing a great fleet, an "Invincible Armada" which was to sail up the Channel, take on board the Spanish army in the Netherlands, and cross over to England. While these preparations were being made with Philip's usual care, Sir Francis Drake swooped down on Cadiz and burnt so much shipping and destroyed so many supplies that the voyage had to be postponed a year. This Drake called "singeing the king of Spain's beard." The Armada in the Channel. It was July, 1588, before the "Invincible Armada" appeared off Plymouth in the English Channel. Many of the Spanish ships were larger than the English ships, but they were so clumsy that the English could outsail them and attack them from any direction they chose. Moreover, the Spaniards needed to fight close at hand in order that the soldiers armed with ordinary guns might join in the fray. The English kept out of range of these guns and used their heavy cannon.
Destruction of the Armada. With the English ships clinging to the flanks and rear of the Armada, the Spaniards moved heavily up the Channel. In the narrower waters between Dover and Calais the English attacked more fiercely, and sank several Spanish vessels. Soon the others were fleeing into the North Sea, driven by a furious gale. Many sought to reach Spain by sailing around Scotland and Ireland, and some of these ships were dashed on the rocky shores. Only a third of Philip's proud fleet returned to Spain. Effect of the Defeat of the Armada on Spain. This was the last attempt Philip made to attack the English, because Spain had been exhausted in the effort to collect money and supplies for the Invincible Armada. The war dragged on for many years, and the English attacked and plundered Spanish vessels wherever they found them. The Independence of the Dutch. The ruin of the Armada also meant that the Dutch would succeed in becoming independent of the Spanish king. Seven of the northern provinces had already formed a union and had begun to call themselves the United Netherlands. They were growing richer while their neighboring provinces on the south, which had decided to return to their allegiance to Spain, grew poorer. First Voyage of the Dutch to the East. Even while the fight was going on the Dutch traded in places where Philip had not permitted them to trade while he could control them. One of these places was Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Here the Dutch obtained spices which the Portuguese brought from the East Indies. But in 1580 Philip seized Portugal, and the Dutch could no longer go to Lisbon. This made them anxious to find their way to the East. In 1595 the first fleet set out. This voyage was unsuccessful, but other fleets followed, until soon the Dutch had almost driven the Portuguese, now subjects of the king of Spain, from the Spice Islands. Soon also Dutch sailors ventured across the Atlantic to the shores of America.
|
|
