Elizabeth's Spymaster (34 page)

Again, there is a very strong element of wishful thinking in these reports, coupled with the age-old problem in any intelligence-gathering operation of military or political leaders being told what subordinates believe they want to hear.

But in London, there
were
real problems in creating a credible defensive strategy and with its implementation, mainly due to the queen’s unwillingness to fully comprehend the danger her realm and crown now faced – and, more pertinently, to part with the necessary funds to defend them. Elizabeth also still believed in giving peace a chance, and Burghley, seeking to comfort a frustrated Walsingham, told him:

As God would be best pleased with peace, so in nothing can her majesty content her realm better than in procuring of peace, which, if it cannot be had, yet is she excused before God and the world … In short, seek peace, but prepare for war.
⁷¹

On 9 October 1587, the Privy Council heard a list of defensive measures drawn up by Burghley, including mobilisation of the standing navy, commandeering of merchant ships as warships and supply ships,
⁷²
purchase of further vessels from the Low Countries and the arrest or surveillance of dangerous Catholic recusants within the population.
⁷³
Most were put in train, with the addition, inserted more in hope than of any chance then of realisation, that the Lord Lieutenants of the English counties were ordered to put their local forces on one hour’s notice for military service. An important omission from the orders issued was the royal warships being placed on a war footing. Elizabeth point-blank refused to implement this sensible precaution and the most her discouraged
Councillors could wring out of her exchequer was an additional two ships to join the small fleet stationed in the English Channel – but this for only six weeks’ service.

Walsingham, who suffered more bouts of ill-health for much of 1587, could not believe that the queen would risk everything at such a time of great danger. He despairingly told Leicester on 12 November:

The manner of our cold and careless proceeding here in this time of peril… makes me take no comfort of my recovery of health, unless it please God in mercy and miraculously to preserve us, we cannot long stand.
⁷⁴

A war council met in London on 27 November to debate where the Spanish might land and establish a bridgehead in England. A scare later that month that the Armada had sailed for England and was off the Irish coast – a report subsequently proved incorrect – at least provided the opportunity for a dry run for the defensive plans. The navy ships mobilised with surprising rapidity and merchant ships were speedily requisitioned and fitted out with ordnance from stocks in the Tower of London. Iron braziers were erected on poles on hilltops along the southern coast to act as beacons, to warn of the approach of the Spanish invaders, and local magistrates ordered to ensure ‘the beacons’ guarding and good usage’.
⁷⁵
Walsingham also ordered experienced officers to inspect the militias based in the southern maritime counties,
⁷⁶
and issued an instruction to the Lord Lieutenants for the physical restraint of Catholic recusants. But as the naval forces stood down after this false alarm, the queen halved the complement of the main fleet – again to save money.

Walsingham’s health remained uncertain, but his brief appearances at court must have stiffened the resolve of those, such as Howard, Hatton and Leicester, who were determined to take the war to the Spanish in another pre-emptive strike. The spy master was determined to fight, if needs be, personally on the front line, and he had already ordered new armour from the Low Countries.
⁷⁷

On 15 December 1587, Howard received his orders to take the Navy’s
warships to sea as a forward protective screen in the Western Approaches of the English Channel, and Drake (now a vice admiral), with around twenty ships, was instructed to attack the Armada in its ports. But bad weather and an epidemic of some disease amongst Drake’s crews fatally delayed the sailings.

False alarms continued, as must be expected during periods of high tension. On 10 March 1588, Howard wrote to Walsingham from his anchorage in Margate Roads, off the Kent coast, with news of a Spanish departure:

Last night there came to me of purpose from Dunkirk, one who assures me that on Wednesday last, there came a Scottish gentleman out of Spain to the duke of Parma and brought a packet from the king and declared that the Spanish forces by sea are for certain to depart from Lisbon the 20th of this month with the light moon and that the number of the fleet when they all meet will be 210 sails and the number of soldiers, besides the mariners, are 36, 000 …

I fear me ere it would be long her majesty will be sorry that she has believed some as much as she has done, but it will be very late.
⁷⁸

As well as gathering intelligence, Walsingham was also in charge of the organisation and deployment of Elizabeth’s land forces. Like so many of the nobility and gentry, he also personally paid for a small contingent of troops – in his case fifty mounted lancers, twenty horsemen armed with petronels
⁷⁹
and 200 foot soldiers.
⁸⁰
A document drawn up in April 1588, in his handwriting, provides a fascinating glimpse of the administrative nightmare of organising England’s defences. It is a checklist of what now must be done urgently:

The defence to be made by land and sea.

The defence by sea committed to the Lord Admiral [Howard].

Defence by land – to be considered:

What number of men are put in readiness throughout the realm, horse and foot?

How they are directed to assist upon any invasion?

Who be the lieutenants of the shires and captains of the men both trained and untrained?

What pioneers [military labour] appointed for every band and what carriages [for supply]?

What [gun] powder appointed for every band?

What field pieces [artillery] and munitions are placed in certain of the maritime counties?

Then Walsingham considers the best tactics for repelling the invasion: should the defence forces fight the Spanish on the beaches or lure them inland, burning and laying waste to the countryside in a ‘scorched-earth policy’ to deny them food and fodder for their cavalry and horse-drawn transport?

Where is it likely that the enemy will attempt anything against this realm?

How may he best be withstood? – whether by offering a fight when he has landed or in avoiding a fight (which it is likely the enemy will affect) and to make head[way] against him with the use of pioneers and withdrawing of victuals.

What men of sufficiency meet to be sent to those places where the descent [upon the shore] is likely to be made?

What engineers are there in this realm meet to be used for the direction of the pioneers?

What forces were [best] to be about her majesty’s person, both horsemen and footmen [her bodyguard]?

If anything should be attempted against the city of London, which way would it be attempted and how may it best be withstood?

By this time, the strategic picture had changed dramatically and the threat was imminent. On 22 April, on the eve of the glorious pomp and circumstance of the Order of the Garter ceremonies at Windsor, Walsingham wrote sarcastically, if not confidently, to his cousin Sir Edward Norris, then at sea:

This bearer can tell you that here we do nothing but honour St George, of whom the Spanish army seems to be afraid for that, as we hear, they will not be ready to set forward before the middle of May, but I trust it will be May come twelve month.

The King of Spain is too old and too sickly to fall [attempt] to conquer kingdoms.
⁸¹

The spy master’s information was amazingly accurate: the Armada departed, under the command of Medina Sidonia, from Lisbon for England and glory between 18 and 20 May. That month, he also received an updated order of battle for the Armada from one of his agents in Spain, plus a breakdown of shipping available to Spanish forces based in the Netherlands.
⁸²

In late June, Cornish sailors came across some Spanish ships waiting at an agreed rendezvous off the Scilly Islands:

A barque of Mousehole in Cornwall, being bound for France to load salt, encountered nine sail of great ships between Scilly and Ushant bearing north east with the coast of England. Coming near to them, he, doubting [suspecting] they were Spaniards, kept the wind of them. They perceiving it, began to give him chase. In the end, three of them followed him so near that the Englishman doubted hardly to escape them.

At his first sight… there were two flags spread which were suddenly taken in again. They were all great ships, the least of them from 200 to five [500] and 800 tons.
⁸³

But this was just the vanguard of the Armada. Bad weather forced the vast bulk of the fleet, some vessels badly damaged by storms, to take shelter in northern Spanish ports like Corunna, and this respite allowed the English to hone their defensive plans.

On 18 June, the queen called the English gentry and their followers to the colours and a few days later, the Lord Lieutenants of the counties were ordered to place their militias on maximum readiness.
⁸⁴
Some forces were mobilised: 1, 000 cavalry and 5, 000 infantry were speedily
stationed in the eastern county of Essex, where Parma’s forces were now expected to land, and measures put in place for the defence of the Thames Estuary, including building barriers of 120 ships’ masts (priced at
£6
each) chained together in the river.
⁸⁵

Walsingham wrote to Norris on 9 July:

For the navy of Spain, we have lately received [news] that by reason of their great wants, as well of mariners as of necessary provisions, but especially through the infection fallen among their men, they are forced to return and have dispersed themselves.
⁸⁶

Walsingham’s information was out of date. Three days later, on 12 July, the reprovisioned and repaired Armada, under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the Captain-General of Andalusia, finally left for England, his flagship hoisting a sacred flag bearing the design of a crucifix between the figures of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Mary Magdalene. The weather was rough, making progress slow. Medina Sidonia reported later:

The sea was so heavy that all the sailors agreed they had never seen its equal in July. Not only did the waves mount to the skies, but some seas broke clean over the ships … it was the most cruel sight ever seen.
⁸⁷

Seven days later, the Armada arrived off the south-west coast of England. On 21 July, Howard wrote hurriedly to Walsingham from his flagship, the
Ark Royal:

Sir – I will not trouble you with any long letter – we are at present otherwise occupied than with writing.

Upon Friday at Plymouth, I received intelligence that there were a great number of ships descried off the Lizard. Whereupon, although the wind was very scant, we first warped
⁸⁸
out of harbour that night and upon Saturday turned out very hardly, the wind being [in the] south west.

About three in the afternoon, [we saw] the Spanish fleet and did
what we could to work for the wind which [by this] morning we had recovered, [observing] their f[leet] to consist of 120 sail, whereof there are four g[alleasses] and many ships of great burden.

At nine of the [clock] we gave them fight, which continued until one.

[In this] fight we made some of them to bear room to stop their leaks; notwithstanding, we dare not adventure to put in among them, their fleet being so strong. But there shall be nothing either neglected or unhazarded, that may work their overthrow.

Howard adds an urgent appeal for cannon shot in a hasty postscript:

Sir, for the love of God and our country, let us have, with some speed, some great shot sent us of all bigness, for this service will continue long, and some powder with it.
⁸⁹

Walsingham’s old spy Nicholas Ousley reported the sea battles from Drake’s ship
Revenge,
off Portland Bill, on 23 July:

We passed the Spanish fleet the 21st and this day, was the taking of the galleon wherein was Don Pedro de Valdes, who is third person in this army [after] the duke [of Medina Sidonia], and Juan Martinez de Recalde, vice-admiral. They have reported to me they are now left 150 sail, divided as I do see, twelve in squadron, and do keep such excellent good order in their fight that if God do not miraculously work, we shall have wherein to employ oursel[ves] for some days.

It was going to be a close-run battle, fighting all the way up the English Channel. Then Ousley, with a strangely awkward sense of timing given Walsingham’s obvious preoccupation with the defence of the realm and the almost permanent sessions of the Privy Council at Richmond, turns to more personal issues, seeking that

there may be some consideration of the long time I was prisoner for a spy, for writing the letters to London that came to your honour’s
hands; which being proved I could not have release but with great expenses and bribes.