Read The Spanish Armada Online
Authors: Robert Hutchinson
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Great Britain, #Military, #Naval, #General
The Spanish Armada (13 page)
There were some among Elizabeth’s subjects who placed profit ahead of patriotism. Sometime in 1587, Elizabeth’s government learned that twelve English merchants – most from
Bristol – had been supplying the Armada, ‘to the hurt of her majesty and undoing of the realm, if not redressed’. Their nine sizeable cargoes of contraband, valued between
£300 and £2,000, were not just provisions but also supplies of ammunition, gunpowder, muskets and ordnance. What happened to these traders (were they Catholics?) is unknown, but in
those anxious and edgy times, they would be unlikely to have enjoyed the queen’s mercy.
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Walsingham was still hampered by a crippling lack of intelligence assets in Spain, and was forced to rely on merchants providing eye-witness accounts or just plain gossip.
These brave men were easily compromised: in April 1587, Mendoza told Philip that he had heard from a ‘good quarter’ (?the treacherous Stafford) that
a Scots merchant, who says he is the King of Scotland’s banker, is in Spain with twelve well-fitted English boats freighted with merchandise from England – the
mariners also being English.
It would be well for your majesty to send orders to the ports to have this merchant arrested.
His name is Hunter.
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The spy, based in Lisbon, was detained, put on trial as an English agent and supporter of heretics and imprisoned in the city. A much later letter from him confirmed
Mendoza’s suspicions. He described his incarceration but then boldly appended details of the munitions and ordnance still stored in the city. Although he used a tiny sketch of a hunting horn
to identify himself as the writer, the letter’s true provenance is revealed by Walsingham’s marginal note, scribbled back in London: ‘From Mr Hunter of Lisbon.’
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Nicholas Ousley in Malaga smuggled his reports to England hidden in wine casks. Mendoza again uncovered the English spy in a note to Madrid on 12 July 1587:
Ousley . . . sends advertisements [news] to the queen and on Walsingham receiving certain letters from him, said he was one of the cleverest men he knew and the queen was
much indebted to him from his regular and trustworthy information.
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Ousley was arrested but managed to bribe his way out of gaol and was still sending his reports to England as late as April 1588.
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Walsingham’s most effective agent overseas was the Catholic Anthony Standen, who operated under the somewhat grandiose alias of Pompeo Pellegrini, or sometimes the more mundane initials
‘B.C.’. He had been a member of the household of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (Mary Queen of Scots’ murdered second husband) and later lived in Tuscany. Standen befriended Giovanni
Figliazzi, the Duke of Tuscany’s ambassador in Madrid, and used this friendship to garner Spanish military intelligence. Standen’s efforts produced
an impressive
espionage
coup de théâtre
in May 1587. In a coded letter, he told Walsingham:
Since your last [letter] in which you desire intelligence on Spanish matters, I have borrowed one hundred crowns and dispatched to Lisbon a Fleming who has a brother in
service with the Marqués of Santa Cruz and of his chamber.
I have given him [the] address for his letters to me at the [Tuscan] ambassador’s house in Madrid who straight [away] will send them to me.
He is a proper fellow and writes well and I sent him away with these four [Genoese] galleys [who have sailed for Spain to join the Armada].
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Given the painfully slow transportation resources available in the sixteenth century, there would always be inevitable delays in receiving the information, but Walsingham now
had a spy within the household of the Armada commander-in-chief himself. One of the first fruits was a copy of Santa Cruz’s most recent order of battle, dated 22 March 1587, complete with the
wages bill of the fleet, signed by the captain-general himself and the navy secretary Barnaby de Pedrosa. Three months later, Standen reported that Spanish preparations would not be completed in
time that year to take advantage of the best weather to launch the invasion. A relieved Walsingham passed this letter on to Burghley with the comment: ‘I humbly pray your lordship that
Pompeo’s letter may be reserved to yourself. I would be loath [sic] the gentleman should have any harm through my default.’
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The spymaster’s maxim was that the acquisition of knowledge is ‘never too dear’ and his espionage network was becoming increasingly expensive. The queen grudgingly granted
£3,300 (£600,000 at current prices)
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in March and June 1587, and a further £2,000 the following year towards the cost of
Walsingham’s secret service activities. Considering the scale of his network of spies and informers, it seems certain that he had to supplement this spending out of his own purse.
Another weapon in his secret war against Spain was the black art of propaganda and psychological warfare. In July 1587, Mendoza complained about English newsletters ‘written by one of
Walsingham’s
officers . . . the son of a Spanish friar who fled many years ago from St Isidro in Seville with a nun of Utera to whom he is married. The son is a much
worse heretic than the father . . . I mention this matter to your majesty that you understand that although these reports have some appearance of probability, they are really hatched by
Walsingham’s knavery.’
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The spymaster also printed almanacs in Amsterdam and Paris that forecast damaging storms for the summer of 1588
and great disaster for the Armada. These morale-sapping prophecies damaged recruitment to the Spanish army and in Lisbon an astrologer was arrested for making ‘false and discouraging
predictions’.
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In Madrid, Philip was rewriting the invasion plan. On 4 September 1587, he instructed the Duke of Parma that once the Spanish treasure fleet had been safely escorted to Cape St Vincent, Santa
Cruz should collect all his ships and ‘sail directly, in the name of God, to the English Channel, proceeding along it until they drop anchor off Margate point [Kent]
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having first sent notice to you . . . of his approach’.
When you see the passage assured by the arrival of the fleet at Margate, or at the mouth of the Thames, you will, if the weather permits, immediately cross with the whole
army in the boats which you will have ready.
You and the marqués will then cooperate, the one on land and the other afloat, and with the help of God, will carry the main business through successfully.
Until you have crossed over with the army, the marqués is not to allow himself to be diverted from assuring your safe passage and keeping at bay any force of the enemy which may come
out to prevent it . . .
When you have landed (the marqués giving you 6,000 selected Spanish infantry as ordered) I am inclined to leave to the discretion of both of you what would be the best for the
marqués to do with the fleet.
Should Santa Cruz continue to protect the sea lanes from Flanders or capture ‘some port’ or ‘seize some English ships . . . to deprive them of maritime forces
which are their principal strength’? After both commanders had considered these options, Santa Cruz should carry out the joint decision ‘and you will hasten to the front . . . I
trust in God, in whose service it is done, that success may attend the enterprise and that yours may be the hand to execute it.’
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The king badgered his admiral to complete repairs to his ships and be ready to sail on 25 October. His patience was fast running out and he told Santa Cruz on 10 October: ‘There is no more
time to waste on requests and replies. Just get on with the job and see if you cannot advance the agreed departure date by a few days.’ As the departure date loomed nearer, Philip became
increasingly agitated and frustrated: ‘So much time has been lost already that every further hour of delay causes me more grief than you could imagine. I charge and command you most strictly
to leave before the end of the month.’
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But his increasingly strident and imperious orders alone could not alter the harsh reality: the
Armada was very far from being ready to sail.
Unlike many dilemmas in the history of intelligence, the English were in a position to build up a picture of Philip’s military capabilities as well as correctly gauging his hostile
intentions. But they could only guess where the Spanish intended to land. An assessment of the potential danger areas was included in a document entitled
Such means as are considered to put the
forces of the Realm in order to Withstand an Invasion.
Milford Haven (Pembrokeshire), Falmouth, Helford, Plymouth (Cornwall), Torbay (Devon), Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight were singled out
as places of especial danger and ‘the places following are apparent for the army of Flanders to land in: Sussex, the Downs and Margate in Kent, the River Thames, Harwich, Yarmouth, Hull [and]
Scotland:
It is unlikely that the King of Spain will engage his fleet too far . . . before he has mastered [a] good harbour of which Plymouth is nearest to Spain. [It is] easy to be
won, speedily to be by him fortified and situated convenient to find succour unto, either out of Spain or France.
Portland [Dorset] is a great harbour for all his ships to ride in; a good landing for men [and] this isle [having] being won, is a strong place for retreat.
The reason why the Downs, Margate and the Thames are thought fit for landing places is in respect of the commodity of landing and nearness to the Prince of Parma, of whose forces the King of
Spain [is] reported [to have] special trust.
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Available intelligence was inevitably confusing and contradictory. Thomas Dence ‘a pensioner of the King of Spain, a great papist, but not yet
wishing the destruction of England’ believed that the Armada would seize Milford Haven and fortify it, as well as Lambay Island, off the east coast of Finegal in Ireland.
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As late as May 1588, there were reports that the Spanish ‘would rather land in the Isle of Wight than in any other place in England’.
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Elizabeth’s government sought professional advice about the size and nature of a successful invading force from Sir William Wynter, the English naval surveyor and commander. He
replied:
Whereas it is said that [Parma’s] strength is thirty thousand soldiers, then I assure your honour, it is no mean quality of shipping that must serve for transporting
that number [of men] and that which appertains to them, without the which I do not think they will put forth; three hundred sail must be the least.
For I well remember that in the journey made to Scotland in the queen’s majesty’s father’s time, when we burned Leith and Edinburgh
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there was in that expedition two hundred and sixty sail of ships and yet we were not able to land above eleven-thousand men and we then [were] in fear of none that could
impeach us by sea.
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Walsingham suspected that most ‘mischief’ was likely to come from Scotland ‘where the employment of two thousand men by the enemy, with some portion of
treasure, may more annoy us more than thirty thousand men landed in any part of this realm’.
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Unaware that Parma planned to land on the Kent coast, Elizabeth’s military advisers eventually selected Essex as the most likely place where the Spanish would storm ashore and the focus of
defensive effort was switched there. Fears of an east coast landing were reinforced in March 1588 when three suspicious ships were seen off Yarmouth ‘sounding the depths at diverse
places’.
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The Thames estuary had a wide channel leading straight to the heart of the capital. On either side there were expanses of shallow mudflats that posed a serious obstacle to a vessel of any
draught. Therefore, the defensive plans included the installation of an iron chain across the river’s fairway at Gravesend in Kent, designed by the Italian engineer Fedrigo Giambelli. This
boom, supported by one
hundred and twenty ship’s masts (costing £6 apiece) driven into the riverbed and anchored to lighters, was intended to stop enemy ships
penetrating upriver to London. Unfortunately the first flood tide broke the barrier.
31
A contemporary map of the Thames defences, drawn by Robert
Adam, shows the raking fields of fire from cannon on both banks and a second boom (or bridge of boats) further west at Lees Ness, before Blackwall Reach.
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A similar boom was stretched across the River Medway from the new fort at Upnor, Kent, in 1586 to protect the safe anchorage there.
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Mobilising England’s defences imposed an immense administrative burden on the Tudor government. After years of neglect there was so much to do and so little time in which to do it. A
detailed survey of potential invasion beaches along the English Channel produced an alarming catalogue of vulnerability. In Dorset alone, eleven bays and coves were listed, with annotations such
as: ’Chideock and Charmouth are two beaches to land boats but it must be very fair weather and the wind northerly’. Swanage Bay could ‘hold one hundred ships and [the anchorage is
able] to land men with two hundred boats and to retire again without danger of low water at any time’.
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Further east in Hampshire,
‘from Calshot to Lymington, [there are] good landing in two places, between Stansgore and Lepe and at Pits Deep and Siblers Lane’. The coast from Christchurch harbour to Bournemouth had
‘for the most part good landing with small boats and their shipping may safely ride with[in] half a mile (804 m) of the shore in great number’.
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In Sussex, the breach in the coastal defence works at Bletchington Hill caused during a French raid forty-three years before remained unrepaired.
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Lacking money and resources, Elizabeth’s government decided that only the most dangerous beaches would be defended by wooden stakes rammed into the sand and shingle as boat obstacles, or
by deep trenches excavated above the high-water mark. Earth ramparts were also thrown up to protect the few cannon available
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or troops armed with
harquebuses or bows and arrows. Those earthworks on the Isle of Wight were to be at least four feet (1.22 m) high and eight feet (2.44 m) thick, with sharpened poles driven into their face and with
a wide ditch in front. Despite his frequent and vociferous complaints to London, the island’s governor, Sir George Carey, had just four mounted guns and enough gunpowder for only one
day’s
use.
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He wrote testily: ‘If this place be of so small importance to be thought worthy of no better
provision, having discharged my duty in declaration of my wants, I will perform what I may with my small strength and wish better success than I have reason to expect.’
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Carey also criticised plans to reinforce the island with raw recruits from the Hampshire militia – ‘a brand of men termed trained, who I find
rather so in name than in deed’. Carey suspected, not unreasonably, that the irascible Henry Radcliffe, Fourth Earl of Sussex, in charge of the defence of Portsmouth, would retain the best
men to fulfil his own responsibilities.
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