Battles of Destiny :: Chapter XI. THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA

Chapter XI. THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA

Spain’s proudly invincible Armada left Lisbon, May 20, 1588 with one hundred and forty ships and thirty thousand four hundred and ninety-seven men; fifty-three shattered vessels, and ten thousand men, vincible and humbled, returned to port Santander, Sept. 13, 1588. This disaster led to the decadence of Spain as a maritime power, and indirectly to the decline of Spanish dominance both in the old and in the new world.

The effects of any great event are not immediately discernible nor are its causes ever fully revealed. When Philip II. of Spain received with courteous equanimity his defeated admiral, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and to his words,

“And you see here, great King,

All that remains of the Armada’s might

And of the flower of Spain.”

made answer,

“God rules above us!

I sent you to contend with men and not

With rocks and storms. You’re welcome to Madrid.”—Schiller.

did the great King see then either the causes or the consequences of the vincibility of his Invincible Armada!

The character of Philip II. is portrayed upon the historic page in colors of sharp contrast. To the Spaniards he was their Solomon, their “prudent king”; to Motley and the Netherlands he was “the demon of the South.”

Philip II. was the finished product of his age and nation. Pride, intolerance, absolutism combined with excellent administrative ability, deep tho’ narrow religious convictions, and rigorous sincerity, characterized both the man and the monarch. To a victim of an Auto da Fe he said with stern truthfulness, “If my own son were guilty like you I should lead him with my own hands to the stake.”

As to Philip’s really having delivered his son, Don Carlos, into the hands of the Grand Inquisitor as tragically told in Schiller’s “Don Carlos”, well that is drama, not history. But when a noted name and its suggested personality—for good or for evil and unfortunately less frequently for good than for evil—are once fascinatingly fixed in drama or story or song, not all the tomes of contradictory evidence, not all the living archives of dead centuries, not Truth itself, can shatter the crystal charm or make it cease shining. Alexander the Great, world conqueror; Socrates, the Wise; Plato, poet-philosopher; Aristotle, master of them that know; Julius CÆsar, deplored of all nations; Mark Anthony, Cleopatra’s lover; Nero, monster; Caligula-Commodus-Heliogabalus, crowned madmen; Marcus Aurelius, Emperor-philosopher; Charlemagne, the Good; Louis IX., the Saint; Louis XI., hypocrite; John of England, child murderer; Richard III., deformed devil; Henry VIII., wife-killer; Machiavelli, serpent-sophist; Louis XIV., despot, Arbiter Elegantiarum; Elizabeth, Good Queen Bess; Mary, Queen of Scots, the lovely unfortunate; Philip II. of Spain, bigot: thus are they fixed in the charmed circle of literature and thus shall they glitter forever.

Is history itself any more reliable than drama? As to facts, Yes; as to motives, intentions, cumulative causes, results, all round truth, No. “Histories are as perfect as the historian is wise, and is gifted with an eye and a soul,” says the astute Carlyle; and every honest author feels at deepest heart the truth of these words. The soft art of omission is known to every artist of the pen. And condemnation euphemistically balanced by excusing comment may, in one artistic sentence, satisfy at once a writer’s conscience, his subjectivity, and the claims of his peculiar environment. Can any one doubt that it was thus Macaulay wrote his brilliant history of England? And even granted almost the impossible—that an historian be ruggedly truthful and fearlessly sincere; he is not thereby rendered wise, nor is he necessarily gifted with an eye and a soul.

So in colors of sharp contrast upon the historic page will Philip II. ever be portrayed; but both can’t be right. Perhaps tho’ they may be as sundered extremes of a prismatic ray which, when complementary coloring shall have been added, will become white light.

Storms.

Truly it was against storms and rocks as well as against such rough sea-dogs as Drake and Hawkins and Raleigh and Frobisher and Howard that the Invincible Armada contended. In the beginning of the northward cruise as the Armada was rounding the corner of Spain, off Corunna, a violent tempest arose. The frail caravels, and galleons and galleasses of 1588 were not so independent of wave and wind as are the Dreadnoughts of 1914. Yet ocean is still master of man; and man’s most titan-like Titanic is but a puny plaything in old Neptune’s hand.

Several vessels were lost in the storm, and the fleet was so badly damaged that in consequence the Spanish Admiral was obliged to stop off at Corunna for repairs. July 12th, after so inauspicious a beginning, the fleet was again on its way northward.

Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, captain general of all the Spanish armies, was at Dunkirk with a flotilla of large flat-bottomed barges awaiting the Armada to convoy him and his army across the channel. His plan was to invade England by way of the Thames and land his veteran forces in London.

“Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma, captain general of the Spanish armies, and governor of the Spanish possessions in the Netherlands, was beyond all comparison the greatest military genius of his age. He was also highly distinguished for political wisdom and sagacity, and for his great administrative talents. He was idolized by his troops, whose affection he knew how to win without relaxing their discipline or diminishing his own authority. Pre-eminently cool and circumspect in his plans, but swift and energetic when the moment arrived for striking a decisive blow, neglecting no risk that caution could provide against, conciliating even the populations of the districts which he attacked by his scrupulous good faith; his moderation, and his address; Farnese was one of the most formidable generals that ever could be placed at the head of an army designed not only to win battles, but to effect conquests. Happy it is for England and the world that this island was saved from becoming an arena for the exhibition of his powers.” Creasy.

As in 1588 Alexander Farnese with a chosen army awaited at Dunkirk the assistance of the Armada both to clear the seas of Dutch and English war ships and to convoy in safety his flotilla to the coast of England: so, too, in 1805 Napoleon Bonaparte awaited at Boulogne for Villeneuve to do him a like service; and in both cases the English fleet took the offensive and destroyed at one blow both the protective war boats of the enemy and the hopeful plans of the man who waited. The sea fights at Calais Roads and at Trafalgar are perhaps negatively momentous in history but not the less momentous.

The Spanish fleet after some disastrous fighting with the English cruisers off the coast of Plymouth succeeded in reaching Calais Roads (July 27). Here they were quickly semi-circled by the combined Dutch and English fleet under Lord Charles Howard, high admiral of England. The Spanish ships were far greater in bulk than those of the opposing force and in the harbor of Calais they were huddled together “like strong castles fearing no assault, the lesser placed in the middle ward.” The lighter English ships, no longer able to use their two best assets, nimbleness and advantage of the wind, clung doggedly around these ocean leviathans awaiting the hour of opportunity. At length early on the morning of the 29th the English Admiral succeeded in thrusting eight Greek fire-ships in among the compact wooden war vessels. The effect was electrical. The Spanish ships cut their cables and were dispersed and the fight ship to ship was soon in full progress. All day long from early dawn till dark this battle raged. The Spaniards were driven out from Calais Roads and past the Flemish ports and far out beyond Dunkirk where the Prince of Parma waited. The English then ceased pursuit. Lord Henry Seymour with an able squadron was left to maintain the blockade of the Flemish port and to render ineffectual the activities of the Prince of Parma.

Northward sped the vincible Armada farther and farther from sunny Spain. She had many wounded men on board ships, her provisions were failing, the channel filled with victorious Dutch and English war boats offered no hope of a way of return, and at last in desperation the Spanish admiral directed the course of his ships around the northern coast of Scotland and Ireland. What a long and cruel way home for wounded soldiers, starving sailors, and disheartened generals! But even here ill luck pursued them. A storm arose as they were passing thro’ the Orkneys; their vessels were dispersed, many were lost. About thirty ships were afterwards wrecked on the west coast of Ireland, and those of the crews who succeeded in reaching the shore were immediately put to death. It is estimated that fourteen thousand thus perished.

And in September of that memorable year there came straggling ship by ship into the port Santander all that were left of the gallant fleet that had sailed away five months ago to subdue England and so win all Europe for Spain.

Nor was that plan at all chimerical, nor its realization improbable. Spain was at that time in possession of Portugal, Naples, Sicily, Milan, Franche-Compte, and the Netherlands; in Africa she controlled Tunis, Oran, the Cape Verde and the Canary islands; in Asia, the Philippine and Sunda Islands and part of the Moluccas; in the New World, the empire of Peru, and of Mexico, New Spain, Chili, Hispaniola and Cuba. Only England held out against the power of Spain and stood adamantine to all her threats, cajolery, caresses. Only England stood between Philip II. of Spain and Spanish dominance in the old and in the New World. English buccaneers seized upon his galleons on their return gem-laden from Peru and Mexico. Drake the “master robber of the New World” had signally dishonored Philip of Spain and had in requital been honored by the English queen with the title Sir Francis. England must be destroyed (Britannia delenda est.) Spain seemed powerful enough by land and by sea to be as a new Rome to old Carthage: but winds and waves and rocky coasts and adamantine Englishmen reversed the Roman story (Britannia non deleta est.)

The Sixteenth Century.

“What we appear is subject to the judgment

Of all mankind; and what we are, of no man.”

Schiller in “Mary Stuart.”

These lines upon the lips of Elizabeth Tudor are her condemnation in the judgment of all mankind. Short sighted, indeed, and headed directly towards the rapids of the all revealing Real is the mortal who thus honors appearances.

Elizabeth would have Mary Stuart put to death, but would seem to have tried to save her: Elizabeth would sign the death warrant, but would seem to have been constrained, to have done so regretfully, to have recalled the fatal sentence when, alas! too late. But all this flimsy Seeming has been blown away by the rugged years; and that which this Machiavellian queen thought subject to the judgment of no man has become her condemnation in the eyes of all.

So close they lie together now in old Westminster Abbey—these rival queens who once so cordially feared and hated one another! and for whose conflicting ambitions all Britain was not room enough, but one must die! How ignoble seems now the strife, how despicable the deed of culminant hate, how diaphanous all the Seeming! Was it worth while?

The death of Mary, Queen of Scots, at the hands of her cousin Queen Elizabeth aroused a feeling of angry indignation in every court of Europe. France, Spain, and the Vatican, openly denounced the deed. And it was, in great measure, in execration of this unnatural cruelty that Pope Sextus V. espoused the cause of Philip II. of Spain and urged and aided the invasion of England.

Strange that such men as Edmund Spenser, author of FÆrie Queen and Sir Walter Raleigh, mirror of chivalry, should have been among the foremost to demand the death of the Scottish queen. But those were turbulent times. Life and death never played the mortal game more boldly and recklessly and desperately than in the sixteenth century. The magic of the New World was upon the old; the glamour of gem-lit El Dorados shimmered across the seas; and thither responsively rushed in shaky ships and leaky caravels those whom the gods would destroy made mad by the bite of the gold-tarantula. “We are as near to heaven by sea as by land”, shouted Sir Humphrey Gilbert as his frail bark was lost in the storm; as his deck lights rose high and dashed low and darkened far down ’neath the sea-lashing storm.

And night with wondering stars looked down upon De Soto’s lordly grave. And then as now and even throughout the historic ages, the prehistoric, the geologic—the thundering waters fell and formed Niagara Falls. In silvery moonlight, in dazzling sun-radiance rainbow-frilled, in blinding white of winter, in rainy spring, in saber flashing summer storm—the thunder-waters fell; they fall; they shall fall.

When Columbus and his crew, secretly fearful of falling off the good old planet Earth, sailed the unknown sea; while Cortes conquered Mexico (not yet calm); while Pizarro ravaged Peru; while Balboa ascended the Andean heights and “silent upon a peak in Darien” first saw the vast Pacific; while De Soto died and was buried; while Drake circumnavigated the globe; while Mary, Queen of Scots laid her head on the block and the axe fell; while the Invincible Armada hurrying northward away from the foe, sailed brokenly back to Spain by way of the Orkneys: while Julius CÆsar fell pierced with twenty-three wounds; while Hannibal crossed the Alps; while Alexander, world-conqueror, aged thirty-two died at old Babylon; while Pericles of Athens reigned imperishably; while Sardis burned and Sardis was avenged; while Marathon, Salamis, ThermopylÆ, PlatÆa, Mycale were fighting; while Babylon the Great was captured by Cyrus; while the Memphian pyramids were building; while the great Sphinx of Gizeh rose solemnly; while griffins and dragons and gummy pterodactyls winged the air; while plesiosauri and ichthyosauri fought for the empire of ocean; while the original of the Pittsburgh Diplodocus Carnegiei was sixty feet somewhere—why, even then were the waters rolling over the rock now called Niagara; even then Niagara Falls that fall and shall fall were falling.

Sea Fights.

The hostile encounters by land throughout the historic ages have been practically countless; sea fights are few. Man feels intuitively that the yielding wave is not the fit place for battle. Salamis, Actium, Lepanto, Calais Roads are the chief naval engagements of history.

When Rome had won her first game in world conquest and all Italy was Rome, Carthage was mistress of the Mediterranean, and without her permission no man might even wash his hands in her “Phoenician Lake.” Triremes and quinqueremes with proudly curving prows scudded over the blue waters or huddled together in port as bevies of black swans.

And Rome had no fleet. But Rome could learn from her enemies; and when a wrecked Carthaginian galley was dashed against the Latian coast, Rome quickly learned the art of making galleys; and within two months the waving forest near the coast was metamorphosed into a fleet of one hundred and twenty Roman triremes.

And when the pain of growth was upon Rome making further conquest fatally necessary, she embarked unsteadily upon her late waving forest trees and went reeling forth to meet the swan bevies of the Mediterranean. The hostile fleets engaged and Rome’s was annihilated.

Then these sullen young-world children wildly wept, as did Romulus and Remus, perhaps, in the cave of the she-wolf. But when they were suckled and made strong with the milk of defeat, these wild young Romans built themselves another fleet. And Duillius devised a grappling contrivance whereby to catch and hold the enemy’s ship until a drawbridge could be thrown across o’er which the short-sword Roman soldiers might pass and so fight on the deck hand to hand as on land.

Again the hostile fleets engaged on the blue Mediterranean. But as the haughty quinqueremes with their decks filled with archers bore down upon the awkward Roman triremes, the grappling “hands” arose, the quinqueremes were grappled. Consternation prevailed among the Carthaginians as the drawbridges from ship to ship were thrown across, and the dreaded Roman soldiers short-sword in hand were seen slaughtering the archers and the rowers. Rome’s first naval victory was won.

If the blue Mediterranean could make known all that has taken place upon its waves and shores—what a Homer of the waters it would be! But nature is indifferent to the human tragedy.

That other scene off the coast of Carthage, after the second Punic war, when Rome demanded as a condition of peace that the Carthaginian fleet should be destroyed—yet burns upon the historic page, but the waters that once reddened with the flames just ripple unrememberingly. Five hundred galleys—towering quinqueremes, sturdy triremes—were led out from the harbor before the mourning gaze of the dethroned Queen of the Seas, and set on fire; she watched them blaze down to the laughing waters.

Actium was fought on the Adriatic off the promontory on the west coast of Greece. Here half the world was bartered for one fleeing galley and one woman. While the conflict was yet doubtful and victory seemed even favorably inclined to perch upon the prow of Anthony’s vessel, the barge of Cleopatra shudderingly backed out from the bloody fray, wavered, turned, and sped southward. Marc Anthony followed. Upon the defeat of the allied Roman and Egyptian forces at Actium and over the tragically dead forms of Anthony and Cleopatra, Octavius CÆsar arose to world dominance, becoming Augustus CÆsar, Emperor, Pater PatriÆ, and one man Ruler of Rome, Mistress of the world.

Lepanto was fought at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth, not far from Actium. Here the Cross triumphed over the Crescent and rescued Europe from the deadly blight of Islamism. Don John of Austria, aged twenty-four, led the Christian forces; Alexander Farnese (Prince of Parma), then a youth of twenty, won here his first of many laurels under the generously approving eyes of his young cousin-commander, Don John.

And seventeen years later (1571-1588) the Prince of Parma, Captain general of all the Spanish armies, awaited impatiently at Dunkirk for Admiral Medina Sidonia to clear the channel of hostile vessels so that he and his veteran army might sail across and attack old England. He watched the fight off Gravelines. How his hot Spanish heart must have indignantly throbbed even to bursting, as helplessly cooped in port with a flotilla of unarmed barges to protect, and Lord Seymour with a strong blockading squadron at the mouth of the harbor, he could only see and know and acutely feel that a fearful battle was raging all day long from dawn till dark and that Spain was losing—Spain had lost. One by one hurrying northward past the Flemish ports limped the disabled Spanish ships; English and Dutch cruisers followed in fierce pursuit.

The invasion of England by way of the Thames, the conquest of an inveterate foe, Success proudly placing a flaming carbuncle upon the coronet of the Prince of Parma, the approving glance of Philip and of the fair girl-queen Isabella, Spanish dominance in the old and in the new world—all as burst bubbles died down in gray mist as twilight descended, as dark night gathered over the wave and the world and the fleeing scattered shattered ships of Spain’s vincible Armada.

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