Division of command—Ralegh's delay—Unwillingness of men to serve—Disputes—Ralegh's wise plan of action—The attack—The sack—Ralegh wounded—His small share of spoil—Return home—Sends ship to Guiana—Death of Lady Cecil—Robert Cecil's policy—expedition to Azores—Fayal—Quarrel with Essex.

Ralegh did not long remain inactive. He found that a great adventure was in course of preparation in which he must needs take his part. A year before the Armada Sir John Hawkins had planned an attack on Spain's chief harbour, Cadiz, and in this year of 1596 Lord Howard of Effingham, High Admiral of England, determined to carry the plan into effect. The Earl of Essex was put in command of the land forces, Effingham of the fleet. Elizabeth invariably favoured the dangerous policy of divided command, which Ralegh in his "History of the World" cannot censure too strongly. The reason why such a clever woman continued to make this mistake is not known. Probably she feared that one man by a conspicuous victory would become too powerful for a subject. If this were the reason, and it seems likely that it was, her fears would naturally increase with her age. The same feeling, no doubt, prompted her strange choice of the inexperienced Essex. He, at any rate, she would think, would remain her loyal subject, and would not aspire to rebel against his royal mistress.

The preparations were on an extensive scale. The fleet was divided into four squadrons, which were led by Essex, by the Lord Admiral, by Ralegh, and by Lord Thomas Howard. The total muster numbered seventeen Queen's ships and seventy-six hired ships, which were chiefly used for transport, besides pinnaces and small craft. They were assisted by a Dutch squadron of twenty-four vessels. The men were nearly sixteen thousand in all, land-soldiers and mariners.

Essex was waiting with the fleet at Plymouth for Ralegh, who had been commissioned to find men for the expedition. Ralegh's delay was the cause of much anxiety, and naturally there were not wanting men ready to construe that delay into treachery. Gossip Bacon suggests that he was endeavouring to undermine the position of Essex and get himself nominated general of the land forces in his stead. The true reason of his delay is, however, available. On May 4 he writes from Northfleet on the Thames to Sir Robert Cecil, telling him of the difficulty he experienced in obtaining ships and men for the service. "Mr. Pope presst all the ships. Hee can also informe you how little her Majestie's autoretie is respected. For as fast as wee press men one day they come away another and say they will not serve." He recommends Mr. Pope to Sir Robert Cecil for his keenness, and proceeds, "Here are at Gravesend ... sume 22 saile. Thos above that ar of great draught of water cannot tide it down, for they must take the high water and dare not make after an houre ebb untill they be past Barking Shelf. And now the wind is so strong as it is impossible to turne down, or to warpe down or to tooe downe. I cannot writ to our generalls all this tyme; for the pursevant found me in a countre villag, a mile from Gravend honting after runaway marriners and dragging in the mire from ale-house to ale-house, and could gett no paper, butt that the pursevant had this peece."

The unwillingness to serve on a foreign expedition was common in England then: men began to weary of the hardships of fighting: they knew too intimately the horrors of a sea-battle. Essex, too, found the men at Plymouth ready to mutiny and desert. He immediately took stringent measures: soldiers were tried by martial law, and two were executed forthwith "on a very fair pleasant green called the Ho."

On June 1 the fleet at length put out to sea, and came to anchor on June 20 in the bay of St. Sebastians, which is half a league distant from Cadiz. The voyage had been taken without any mishap, except that the unwisdom of a divided command soon became apparent. From Dover Lord Howard of Effingham wrote to Robert Cecil: "My commission in being joined to the Earl is an idle thing; I am used but as a drag." But the weather was favourable, and several prizes were taken. From St. Sebastians Ralegh had instructions to sail with the ships under his charge and the Dutch squadron to the Main, and to lie just outside the harbour; he was bidden to take special care that the ships riding near Cadiz did not escape, but not to fight, except in self-defence, without further direction. "When I was arrived back again (which was two hours after the rest) I found the Earl of Essex disembarking his soldiers; and he had put many companies into boats, purposing to make his descent on the west side of Cales; but such was the greatness of the billow, by reason of a forcible southerly wind, as the boats were ready to sink at the stern of the Earl; and indeed divers did so, and in them some of the armed men; but because it was formerly resolved (and that to cast doubts would have been esteemed an effect of fear) the Earl purposed to go on until such time as I came aboard him, and in the presence of all the collonels protested against the resolution; giving him reasons and making apparent demonstrations that he thereby ran the way of our general ruin, to the utter overthrow of the whole armies, their own lives, and her Majesty's future safety. The Earl excused himself, and laid it before the Lord Admiral, who (he said) 'would not consent to enter with the fleet till the town were first possessed.' All the commanders and gentlemen present besought me to dissuade the attempt, for they all perceived the danger, and were resolved that the most part could not but perish in the sea, ere they came to set foot on ground, and if any arrived on shoar, yet were they sure to have their boats cast on their heads; and that twenty men in so desperate a descent would have defeated them all. The Earl hereupon prayed me to perswade my Lord Admiral, who, finding a certain destruction by the former resolution, was content to enter the port.

"When I brought news of this agreement to the Earl, calling out of my boat Entramus, he cast his hat into the sea for joy and prepared to weigh anchor."

In these words Ralegh tells how he saved England from a great disaster. It is not known to whom he wrote this account, but it was found and printed by his grandson, Philip Ralegh, just one hundred and three years later. Probably Lord Howard took a negative attitude; he found, no doubt, a grim satisfaction in seeing the impetuous young fool, Essex, send the land force which he commanded to its inevitable destruction. He would think that he could easily set matters right again with his fleet, and Essex would be once for all humiliated, if not slain. Ralegh saved the situation. He had the moral courage to disdain the charge of cowardice, and the ability to prove in words the complete wrongness of the plan of attack. That was not all. The situation was still perilous to a degree. The day was drawing to a close; boats were filled in disorder with men from different ships. They were an attacking force with whom time was of the utmost value, and they were without a plan of attack. Ralegh was indefatigable. All his powers were called into play—his influence over men, his capacity of managing affairs, his knowledge of tactics in sea-fighting and land-fighting—and he mastered the crisis.

The men were disposed to their ships, and the ships were anchored at the very mouth of the harbour, and probably Ralegh was at the pains to prove to them that this retirement was no disgrace. Order was not restored until ten o'clock at night, and then Ralegh drew up a full account of the manner in which the attack should be conducted, full in every detail of the arrangement of the ships and the precedence of the commanders. His plan was accepted, and at his own request he was allowed the post of honour, much coveted, as leader of the van. Lord Thomas Howard especially coveted the foremost position; "he pressed the Generals to have the service committed unto him, and left the Meer Honour to Mr. Dudley, putting himself in the Nonpareill. For mine own part, as I was willing to give honour to my Lord Thomas, having both precedency in the army, and being a nobleman whom I much honoured, so yet I was resolved to give and not take example for this service; holding mine own reputation dearest, and remembering my great duty to her Majesty. With the first peep of day, therefore, I weighed anchor, and bare with the Spanish fleet, taking the start of all ours a good distance."

Within the harbour the enemy were waiting in readiness and in force. Great galleons and galleys, manned with oarsmen, were drawn up in front of the forts, which opened fire upon Ralegh's ships; the men in the galleys gripped their oars in readiness to row out and board any ship which the cannon from the forts or the galleons might disable. Ralegh sailed right into the harbour, disdaining to answer the fire from the forts and the curtain with anything but a contemptuous blare from a trumpet, and leaving the ships that followed him to scatter with their fire the galleys. Ralegh sailed right into the harbour; "the St. Philip, the great and famous Admiral of Spain, was the mark I shot at, esteeming these galleys but as wasps in respect of the powerfulness of the other; and being resolved to be revenged for the Revenge, or to second her with mine own life." For on the Revenge had perished his gallant friend and kinsman, Sir Richard Grenville; and many times through that day Grenville's dying words must have thrilled his mind, those words that are the most illustrious requiem of a dying soldier, spoken in the Spanish of his conquerrors, "Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, having ended my life like a true soldier that has fought for his country, his Queen, his religion, and his honour." For three hours Ralegh, at anchor, kept up an incessant cannonade against the galleons and the forts; the volleys of cannon and culverin came as thick as if it had been a skirmish of musketeers. On one side lay Lord Thomas Howard's ship, the Lyon; on the other lay the Mary Rose and the Dreadnaught. When Essex heard the tremendous roar of the cannon he could no longer stop outside the harbour, but sailed in the Swiftsure as far to the van as he was able, regardless of battle order. But "always I must without glory say for myself that I held single in the head of all." At last the cannonade became too heavy. Ralegh had been told not to board until fly-boats came from the fleet; and no fly-boats came. Accordingly, in a little skiff, he was rowed to the Swiftsure and besought Essex to let him board with his own ship—"for it was the same loss to burn or sink, for I must endure the one." He convinced Essex, who promised upon his honour to second him in whatsoever he did. Ralegh had been away from his ship for a quarter of an hour; but during that quarter of an hour Sir Francis Vere, the Marshal, and Lord Thomas Howard had pushed their ships quietly in front of the Warspite. This Ralegh could not brook. "At my return, finding myself from being the first to be but the third, I presently let slip anchor, and thrust in between my Lord Thomas and the Marshal, and went up further ahead than all them before and thrust myself athwart the channel, so as I was sure none should outstart me again, for that day." But though the battle continued to rage furiously and at close quarters, Sir Francis Vere and Lord Thomas Howard could not rest content with second places. Sir Francis Vere secretly caused a rope to be fastened to the Warspite that he might draw his ship ahead of her. But sailors told Ralegh of this, and he ordered the rope to be severed.

Then Ralegh started to board. He laid out a warp by the side of the Philip "to shake hands with her," and the other English ships followed suit. Fear seized the Spaniards. "They all let slip, and ran aground, tumbling into the sea heaps of souldiers, so thick as if coals had been powred out of a sack in many ports at once: some drowned and some sticking in the mud.... The spectacle was very lamentable on their side; for many drowned themselves; many, half-burnt, leapt into the water; very many hanging by the ropes' ends by the ship's side under the water even to the lips; many swimming with grievous wounds, strucken under water and put out of their pain: and so huge a fire, and such tearing of the ordnance in the great Philip and the rest, when the fire came to them, as, if any man had a desire to see Hell itself, it was there most lively figured."

Then followed the capture and sack of Cadiz. In the assault Ralegh received "a grievous blow in the leg interlaced and deformed with splinters." But he was carried on shore on men's shoulders until a horse was forthcoming, when he mounted. For an hour he remained in the town, but then the pain of the wound became intolerable; the streets were filled with jostling tumultuous soldiers, and they pressed against his leg in their disorder, do what he would to prevent them. So he returned to his ship to rest, while the sack raged in the town.

The plunder taken was immense in quantity and value: and as was invariably the case, there was much ill-feeling as to its distribution. The Queen quarrelled with the generals, thinking that they had much held back, and the generals with each other, thinking that the share of each was disproportionate. Ralegh especially fared ill. "For my own part I have gotten a lame leg and a deformed. For the rest either I spake too late, or it was otherwise resolved. I have not wanted good words, and exceeding kind and regardful usance. But I have possession of naught but poverty and pain." Ralegh was better able to win a first place in the fighting-line, than in the prize list. This he resented with absolute candour: but to deduce from his resentment that he cared only for gain is totally to misunderstand the nature of the man.

The results of the victory, for which Ralegh was chiefly responsible, were far-reaching and decisive. It crippled Spain's power more effectually even than the Armada. Cadiz was razed to the ground; as the Council of State decided that to raze the town was safer than to garrison it for English purposes.

Ralegh gained the respect of his fellow soldiers for his genius and his bravery; even men who, like Sir Anthony Standen, were hostile to him, wrote in enthusiastic praise of his conduct. "Sir Walter Ralegh did (in my judgment) no man better: and his artillery most effect. I never knew the gentleman till this time, and I am sorry for it, for there are in him excellent things, beside his valour. And the observation he hath in this voyage used with my Lord of Essex hath made me love him." But at the Court little had changed. Essex remained arrogant and hostile, and for the time his influence appears to have been dominant.

Immediately on his return Ralegh busied himself in the preparation and despatch of another ship to Guiana, to keep in touch with the natives whose alliance he had on his own visit obtained. Mr. Thomas Masham sailed in a pinnace called the Wat on the 14th of October from Limehouse upon the Thames. Ralegh never ceased from ardour in this great enterprise of his; nothing drove it from his mind; he was convinced of its ultimate success, believing in it as he believed in himself. But he could not go in person, the time was not yet ripe. So he with his wounded leg was glad to retire to Sherborne for a season to the quiet of his Dorsetshire garden. In Sherborne was brought him the news of the death of Lady Cecil, to whom Sir Robert was much devoted, and Ralegh's letter of sympathy is beautiful in thought and expression, though, such is the interesting divergency of human opinion, there are those who think the letter crude, sententious and laboured.

"Sir,

"Because I know not how you dispose of your sealf, I forbeare to visitt you, preferringe your plesinge before myne owne desire. I had rather be with you now then att any other tyme, if I could thereby ether take off frome you the burden of your sorrows, or lay the greater part thereof on myne owne hart.... There is no man sorry for death it sealf, butt only for the tyme of death; every one knowing that it is a bonnd never forfeted to God.... If then we know the same to be certayne and inevitable, wee ought withall to take the tyme of his arrivall in as good part as the knowledge; and not to lament att the instant of every seeminge adversity, which we ar asured have byn on ther way towards us from the begininge.... I beleve it that sorrows are dangerus companions, converting badd into yevill and yevill into worse, and do no other service then multeply harms. They ar the treasures of weak harts and of the foolishe. The minde that entertayneth them is as the yearth and dust whereon sorrows and adversetes of the world do as the beasts of the field, tread trample and defile. The minde of man is that part of God which is in us, which, by how mich it is subject to passion, by so mich it is farther from Hyme that gave it us. Sorrows draw not the dead to life, butt the livinge to deathe...."

So Ralegh wrote; he was acquainted with grief, and familiar with death in every horrid guise. Twenty years later he was to prove with his own example the truth of what he wrote: "It apartayneth to every man of a wize and worthy spiritt to draw together into sufferance the unknown future to the known present; lookinge no less with the eyes of the minde then thos of the body—the one beholdinge afar off and the other att hand—that thos things of this worlde in which we live be not strange unto us when they approach...."

But Sir Robert Cecil was playing a deep and subtle game which was to make him the chief man in England during the few years that remained to the Queen of life and after her death. Essex and Ralegh he feared. He encouraged Essex to pass on his proud way to disaster, using Essex to thwart the rise of Ralegh. And Essex needed small encouragement. He coveted the popularity, which was to end in his utter undoing. Meanwhile his star was in the ascendant. His pride had not yet outgrown his strength.

Outwardly Cecil was friendly to Ralegh and hostile to Essex. He hated Essex; the two men's natures were in fierce opposition.

Ralegh was still suspended from his post of Captain of the Guard; but in June he was brought by Cecil to the Queen's presence. The Queen received him graciously, and reinstated him. Moreover, Ralegh and Essex were no longer in open enmity. Mr. Rowland Whyte records that "Sir Walter Ralegh hath been very often very private with the Earl of Essex and is the mediator of a peace between him and Sir Robert Cecil." And again in a letter dated April 9: "This day being Monday Sir Robert Cecil went in coach with the Earl of Essex to his house where Sir Walter Ralegh came, and they dined there together. After dinner they were very private all three for two hours, where the treaty of peace was confirmed." Between Ralegh and Essex there was something in common at certain moments; there was a gallantry about both men, which, in spite of everything, each could not fail to recognize in the other. This Sir A. Gorges noticed; he wrote with much acumen: "Though the Earl had many doubts and jealousies buzzed into his ears against Sir Walter Ralegh, yet I have often observed that both in his greatest actions of service, and in the times of his chiefest recreations, he would ever accept of his counsel and company before many others who thought themselves more in his favour."

Ralegh's rest was brief. Almost immediately after despatching the Wat to Guiana, he was engaged in raising levies and supplies with Essex for a new expedition against Spain. For the Spanish king was resolved to revenge his bad defeat at Cadiz by another invasion of England. Ralegh always believed that the surest manner of defence against such an invasion was an immediate attack. And that was the step which the Lords of the Council determined to take. About the time that Ralegh's ship, the Wat, returned from Guiana with the news which its captain, Mr. Thomas Masham, brought, the expedition was ready to put out to sea. The fleet was divided into three squadrons; the first was commanded by the Earl of Essex, who was Admiral and General-in-Chief; the second by Lord Thomas Howard; the third by Sir Walter Ralegh, whose position was that of Rear-Admiral, and in whose squadron sailed the great galleons, the St. Andrew and the St. Matthew, which he had captured at Cadiz. On Sunday the 10th of July the fleet set sail. Their destination was Ferroll in the Azores, where the Spanish fleet was reported to be harbouring. Their instructions were firstly to attack the fleet, and if it had gone away, to follow in pursuit; secondly, to intercept and capture the homeward-bound fleets from the East and West Indies. The expedition has passed into history under the name of the Islands Voyage.

The very day after the fleet weighed anchor a storm beat upon the ships with such violence that they were eventually forced to return to whatsoever harbour each could make. Many came very near to sinking, so high was the wind, so strong the waves, and there were sailors who died of exhaustion on their return to shore. The damage done to the heavy ships was very great, and time was necessary to refit them for the sea; the delay involved the necessity of revictualling the ships. On the 26th of July Ralegh reported from Plymouth, "Wee only attend the winde, having repayred as much as we can our bruses. Butt we shall not bee in any great corage for winter weather and longe nights, in thes ships."

The weather was unpropitious on their second venture, though they were obliged to wait until the second week in August. Ralegh's squadron was separated from the fleet, and was forced by the wind into the Bay of Biscay, out of which he found the greatest difficulty in making his way. Later in the voyage Sydney's flyboat foundered; but he and all his soldiers were rescued. "I have notwithstanding," writes Ralegh, "followed my Lord's order to cum to the Ilands, and I am now this 8 of September, in sight of Tercera, having chosen rather to perishe than to relinquishe the enterprize; and, the Lord douth know, in a torne shipp. Butt her Majestye shall find that I valew not my life; although I hope that her Majestye would not that I perishe in vayne. I hope after too dayes to fynde my Lorde Generall and the fleet with whom, I thinke, all the rest of her Majesties shipps ar, butt the Mathew with poore Georg Carew. It is a carfull and perelus tyme of the yeare for thes wayghty shipps. The Lorde of Heaven send us all well to returne, and send us the good hope to do her Majestie acceptable service; to performe which wee have already suffered miche. For my particular, I have never dared to rest since my wreacks, and God doth judge that I never for thes 10 dayes came so mich as in to bedd or cabbin."

Ralegh's squadron did not join the fleet until Essex had been ten days at Flores. Then it was determined to make a joint attack upon Fayal, as they had heard that it was unlikely the Spanish ships from the Indies would sail at all that year, and if they did sail, that they would avoid Flores. Essex sailed first for Fayal, because Ralegh's squadron was obliged to delay for repairs and revictualling. But Ralegh's squadron arrived first at Fayal, and, having waited three days for Essex, Ralegh at length, on the fourth day, attacked and captured Fayal by himself. He writes in the "History of the World:" "There were indeede some which were in that voyage who advised me not to undertake it: and I harkened unto them, somewhat longer than was requisite, especially whilest they desired me to reserve the title of such an exploit (though it were not great) for a greater person. But when they began to tell me of difficulty: I gave them to understand, the same which I now maintaine, that it was more difficult to defend a coast then to invade it. The truth is, that I could have landed my men with more ease than I did; yea without finding any resistance if I would have rowed to another place, yea even there where I landed if I would have taken more company to helpe me. But, without fearing any imputation of rashnesse, I may say that I had more regard of reputation in that businesse, than of safetie. For I thought it to belong unto the honour of our Prince and Nation, that a few Ilanders should not thinke any advantage great enough, against a fleet set forth by Q. Elizabeth: and further I was unwilling that some Low Countrie Captaines and others, not of mine own squadron, whose assistance I had refused, should please themselves with a sweet conceit ... that for want of their helpe I was driven to turne taile."

The passage is one of interest, larger than the mere description of an engagement. It shows Ralegh's immense and correct confidence in his judgment; and how his outlook always embraced much more than the actual event in hand, though its outline was never blurred for that reason. The theory he pronounced on the deck of his ship, and proved next day in the engagement, he reiterates in his History in one of the most notable of his digressions, that an island's only safe defence is her fleet. He ends his remarks with the very typical sentence, "I hope that this question shall never come to triall; his Majesties many moveable Forts will forbid the experience. And thoughe the Englishe will no lesse disdaine, than any Nation under heaven can doe, to be beaten upon their owne ground or elsewhere by a forraigne enemy; yet to entertaine those that shall assaile us with their own beefe in their bellies, and before they eate of oure Kentish capons, I take it to be the wisest way. To doe whiche, his Majesty, after God, will imploy his good ships on the Sea and not trust to any intrenchment upon the shore."

But to the actual action. The men who foretold trouble from the greater man spoke as truly as Ralegh proved his courage and foresight in the event. The fort on the shore was quickly taken; but behind rose a high hill, topped by another strong fort, and the men at the sight wavered to withdraw. None were willing to reconnoitre. Ralegh was furious, and swore that he would do scout's work himself. Sir Arthur Gorges and some dozen personal followers would not suffer him to go alone. So they made their way together up the hill under continual fire from the enemy. Ralegh's clothes were torn by bullets. Gorges was shot in the leg. The ascent impressed the enemy. When the final attack was made, the fort was found to be deserted.

When Essex arrived, Ralegh was master of the island. Ralegh's enemies (a great man seldom lacks such enemies) had long been trying to enflame the antagonism between him and Essex, and now they insisted to Essex that Ralegh's success was flat disobedience, and warranted a heavy penalty. A court martial should be called, and should punish him with death. So when Ralegh visited the Earl's vessel to give an official account of the victory, he was surprised to meet with angry looks and the charge of a breach of the orders. But he convinced Essex that he was within his rights. "None should land any of the troops without the General's presence or his order," said Essex. "There is an Article," replied Ralegh, "that no captain of any ship or company, if he be severed from the fleet shall land anywhere without directions from the General or some principal commander upon pain of death. But I take upon myself to be a principal commander under your Lordship, and therefore not subject to that Article." And he proceeded to explain how the delay of Essex made him think that he was adventuring upon some other enterprise, and how his own company began to murmur and hint at fear. Essex was not easily convinced. Weakness dreads to be slighted, where strength relies upon its own authority. Monson observes in his narrative of the Island Voyage, "The act was urged with that vehemency by those that hated Sir Walter that if my Lord, who by nature was timorous and flexible had not feared how it would be taken in England, I think Sir Walter had smarted for it."

The incident illustrates Ralegh's address, a quality which was essential at that time for any success in life; that was the time when man dealt immediately with man. The mind must always be alive and on the alert. Here was Ralegh, coming to report a successful and daring exploit, suddenly obliged to defend himself against a trumped-up charge. If he failed to take in the whole situation in a moment, and to stand his own ground, death would result from the failure. Nor could he simply rely upon justice; he must know the man with whom he was dealing, and the men who were poisoning the General's mind. Ralegh's self-control is as amazing as his address. He had need of both.

The General was an arrogant, spoiled youth, angry at the knowledge that his subordinate was a better man, angry at his renewed success. A rash word on Ralegh's part would have been his last. And Ralegh had much cause to hate the young man. They were rivals for the love of a magnificent woman whom they served; their rivalry would accentuate the elder man's dislike of the younger's youth. But there is a dignity about Ralegh's conduct and defence which shows no cringing before the reigning favourite, but a superiority to all pettiness, a kind of freedom from what may quickly become the fetters of personality.

Such was Ralegh's last great enterprise against Spanish power. Hereafter the policy of England was to undergo a change, and in the new scheme of things a man like Ralegh could find no place. He was too great to be used by a small mind; pettiness is always full of fear and distrust and envy of powers which are not within its little scope of understanding.

CHAPTER XIII