sail bent. The Disdain, a pinnace, commanded by Jonas Bradbury, now commenced an attack by pouring a broadside into one of the laggards. Lord Howard, in his own ship, the Ark Royal, engaged a great Spanish galleon, and Drake, in the Revenge, Hawkins, in the Victory, and Frobisher, in the Triumph, ranging up gallantly, brought into action all the galleons which had fallen astern. The rear-admiral Recaldo was with this division, and fought it bravely; but his lumbering ships lay like logs on the water in comparison with the lighter vessels of England, which were manageable and in hand like well-trained steeds. Before any assistance could come from the van, one of the great Spaniards was completely crippled, and another-a treasure-ship, with 55,000 ducats aboard-was taken by Drake, who distributed

the money amongst the sailors. The Duke of Medina hove-to, till the slower ships came up, and then all of them, under press of sail, stood farther up the Channel. This first brush gave great spirit to the English, and there were in it several encouraging circumstances. It was seen, for example, that the tall Spanish ships could not bring their ordnance to bear, firing, for the greater part, over the English without touching them; and that the surer fire of the latter told with terrific effect on those huge ships crammed with men, soldiers, and sailors. Howard returned towards Plymouth, where he was to be joined by forty sail. In the course of the night one of the greatest of the Spanish ships was burned, purposely, it is said, by a Flemish gunner on board. It was a dark night with a heavy sea,

THE SPANISH ARMADA.-From the Tapestry in the House of Lords, engraved by the Society of Antiquaries. and some of the Spaniards ran foul of each other, to their great mischief.

On the 23d, Howard, who was reinforced, and who had received into his division Sir Walter Raleigh, came up with the whole Armada off Portland, when a battle began, which lasted nearly the whole of that day. The English fought loose and at large, avoiding a close combat or boarding. They kept separate, but always in motion, tacking and playing about the enemy, Douring in their fire and then sheering out of range, returning before the Spaniards had time to reload, giving them another broadside, and then sheering off as before. According to Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Henry Wotton compared it all to a morrice-dance upon the waters! But once or twice the dying away of the wind rendered these manœuvres impracticable. A division of five merchantmen, led by the gallant Frobisher in his great ship the Triumph, was cut off from the rest, and brought to close action for two whole hours. But, at the same time, one of the

English squadrons cut off a division of the Armada, and crippled every ship in it. Then Howard, from the Ark Royal, signalized, and this victorious squadron, by means of sweepers and tow-boats, was brought into position to the rescue of Frobisher. These victorious ships reserved their fire till they were close alongside the Spaniards. The darkness of night interrupted the battle: in the course of the day the English had taken a large Venetian argosy and several transports. Next day the Spaniards showed small inclination to renew the fight; and it was apparent that they wished to hold on to the place appointed for their junction with the Duke of Parma. The English, on their side, were not in fighting condition, for, by a shameful parsimony, they had been poorly supplied with gunpowder, and by this time they had burned all they had on board. Howard, however, detached some barques and pinnaces, which returned with a supply towards night; but a day had been lost. On the morning of the 25th, he came up with part of the Armada, off the Isle of

Wight, where Captain Hawkins took a large Portuguese galleon. Presently it fell a calm: the great ships of Spain lay motionless upon the water, and were much too heavy to be towed. The English craft, of the lighter kind, were easily towed by their long boats. When a breeze sprung up, Frobisher was set upon by several galleons, and was in great peril, but the White Bear and the Elizabeth Jonas came up to his relief. Other ships ranged up on either side, and the battle seemed becoming general, but the English had again burned all their gunpowder! Having shot away the mainmast, and otherwise shattered the Duke of Medina's own ship, they took advantage of the wind and sheered off.

and he was hemmed in by 140 English sail "fit for fight, good sailors, nimble and tight for tacking about." The Spaniards, however, were well ranged, their greatest ships being placed seaward, next the enemy, like strong castles, the lesser being anchored between them and the shore. The English found that in this position they must fight to disadvantage, but they hit upon a stratagem which presently broke this array. Eight small ships were gutted, besmeared with pitch, rosin, and wild-fire, filled with combusti bles, and placed under the desperate guidance of Captain Young and Captain Prouse, who, at the dead of night, favoured by wide and tide, led them close to the Spanish line, took to their boats, fired the trains, and escaped. The Spaniards, who remembered some terrible fire-ships which had been used against them by the Dutch in the Scheldt, began to cry, "The fire of Antwerp! the fire of Antwerp!" Some cut their cables, others let their hawsers slip, and in haste, fear, and confusion, put to sea. In this dreadful disorder the largest of the galeasses ran foul of another ship, lost her rudder, floated about at the mercy of the tide, and was then stranded. When the fire-ships had exploded, and the danger was over, a gun was fired from the duke's ship as a signal to the Spaniards to return to their former position; but the gun was heard by few, because "they were scattered all about and driven by fear, some into the wide sea, some among the shoals of Flanders." When morning dawned, the English renewed the attack on the scattered squadrons. One fierce attack was made on the great galeass, stranded near Calais, but the small craft could not board her until the admiral sent 100 men in his boats under Sir Amyas Preston. The Spaniards made a brave resistance; but in the end their captain was shot through the head; they were boarded at all points, cut to pieces, or thrown overboard and drowned. In this huge bottom were found 50,000 ducats. At other places, Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, Cumberland, Seymour, and Frobisher, gained many advantages. One of the capital ships of the Armada, a large galleon of Biscay, sank under the English fire. The San Matteo, commanded by Diego Pignatelli, a Neapolitan, in attempting to cover another ship, was raked by the Rainbow and Vanguard, and finally compelled to surrender by a decisive broadside from a heavy Dutchman. Another great Spaniard, dismantled and rent, drifted, fell ashore, and was taken by the mari

On the morrow, the 26th of July, the Armada sailed up the Channel with a fair breeze: Howard hung on their rear, now and then keeping up a feeble fire. He had resolved not to renew the struggle till they came to the Straits of Dover, for he knew that a strong squadron, under Lord Henry Seymour and Sir Thomas Winter, would be ready there to take part in the action. As he followed in the wake of the Spaniards, he received ammunition and all proper supplies from shore; and his force was continually increased by small ships and men out of all the havens of the realm; for the gentlemen of England hired ships from all parts at their own charge, and with one accord came flocking thither. There was a clear sky and a leading wind, which enabled the Spaniards to come to anchor before Calais on the 27th. Hence Medina-Sidonia would have proceeded to Dunkirk, but he was strongly advised to remain where he was; and he sent, over-land, a messenger to the Duke of Parma, entreating him to detach some fly-boats, without which he could not cope with the light and active English ships, and to hasten the embarkation of his troops, which, he represented, might effect a landing in England under cover of his fire. But both these requests were childish and absurd. Although Seymour and most of the English ships had left the station to co-operate with Howard, a small division remained with the Dutch, who closed Parma's only outlets, Nieuport and Dunkirk, and who were more than sufficient to scatter and sink his flat-bottomed boats, if they had put to sea. But, besides that these boats, which had been hastily constructed with bad materials, were already rotting and falling to pieces, disease had broken out among the land-troops, and owing to the delayed arrival of the Armada, their provisions were almost exhausted. Thus Parma could do nothingners of Flushing. Two ketches foundered at sea. till the blockade was cleared and proper ships with provisions were supplied to him. When he had lost a whole day, the Duke of Medina thought of making for Dunkirk; but in the meanwhile Seymour and Winter had joined Howard,

Still, however, the rest of the fleet rallied, and the Spaniards, who had shown no deficiency of courage, cried for revenge: but the Duke of Medina-Sidonia had had enough of this war, and calling a council, he resolved to make his way

1. Silver Medal struck in Holland.

2, 3. Reverse and Obverse of Silver Medal of Queen Elizabeth. 4. Gold Medal of Queen Elizabeth. 5. Silver Medal struck in Holland. 6, 7. Reverse sides of two Silver Medals, called Middelburg Jettons, struck in Holland.

back to Spain in the best manner he could; and | Western Isles, some were stranded in Norway, as it was held dangerous to attempt the English some went down at sea with every soul on board, in their narrow seas, he resolved to steer north- some were cast upon the iron coast of Argyle, wards and return to Spain by sailing round Scot- and more than thirty were driven on the coast land. of Ireland, where the popular name of Port-naSpagna, bestowed on a place near the Giant's Causeway, recals a part of the fearful catastrophe. Those who fell among the Scotch were made prisoners by King James; but the poor Spaniards who fell among the Irish had a worse fate-an eternal blot on the glory of those who inflicted it. The English feared that they might join the Irish Catholics, who were again in insurrection; and Sir William Fitzwilliam, the lord-deputy, sent his marshal, who drove them out of their hiding-places and butchered 200 of them in cold blood. The rest, sick and starved, committed themselves to the greater mercy of the waves in their shattered vessels, and for the most part were drowned. A small squadron was driven back to the English Channel, where, with the exception of one great ship, it was taken by the English, or by their allies the Dutch, or their other friends the Huguenots, who had equipped many privateers at Rochelle. The Duke of Medina, about the end of September, arrived at Santander, in the Bay of Biscay, with no more than sixty sail out of his whole fleet, and these very much shattered, with their crews all worn out with cold, and hunger, and sickness, and looking like spectres. The Lord-admiral of England had anchored safely in the Downs on the 8th of August, having lost but very few men and only one vessel of any consequence. Military skill and flat-bottomed boats could avail the Duke of Parma nothing against the victorious navy of England; and though an alarm was absurdly kept up for some months, the danger was over from the moment that the disorganized Armada retreated to the north.2 About the middle of August, the camp at Tilbury Fort was broken up.3

On the last day of July, Drake wrote to Walsingham-"There was never anything pleased me better than the seeing the enemy flying with a southerly wind to the northward. We have the Spaniards before us, and mind, with the grace of God, to wrestle a pull with them." No one can doubt of the activity and good-will of Drake, of Frobisher, of any one of the great captains engaged; but yet the Spaniards were allowed to go down the wind without much pursuit. "The opportunity," says Sir William Monson, “ was lost, not through the negligence or backwardness of the lord-admiral, but merely through the want of providence in those that had the charge of furnishing and providing for the fleet; for at that time of so great advantage, when they came to examine their provisions, they found a general scarcity of powder and shot, for want of which they were forced to return home. Another opportunity was lost, not much inferior to the other, by not sending part of our fleet to the west of Ireland, where the Spaniards of necessity were to pass, after so many dangers and disasters as they had endured. If we had been so happy as to have followed their course, as it was both thought and discoursed of, we had been absolutely victorious over this great and formidable navy; for they were brought to that necessity that they would willingly have yielded, as divers of them confessed that were shipwrecked in Ireland." In effect, when the Spaniards had rounded the Orkneys, they were dispersed and shattered by a tremendous tempest, the more perilous from their want of a proper knowledge of those seas and They threw overboard horses, mules, artillery, and baggage. Some of the ships were dashed to pieces among the Orkneys and the

coasts.

True and Exact Account of the Wars in Spain. The remarkable fact of the fleet being left bare of ammunition is confirmed by a letter written on the 8th of August, from the camp at Tilbury Fort, by Secretary Walsingham to the lord-chancellor. -Wright. It appears, however, that a part of the fleet followed the Spaniards all along the English and Scottish coast, as far as the Firth of Forth.

Camden; Stor; Strada: Bentivoglio; Strype; Burghley Papers; Hardwick Papers; Southey: Ellis: Wright.

The Armada must have cost Philip immense efforts, for Sismondi represents him as too weak effectually to repel even the hostilities of Catherine de' Medici, acting independently of France. "The attacks made by Catherine and Monsieur, however, did not bring down," he says, "on France very serious reprisals, for Philip II. had annihilated the power, wealth, and energy of all the states over which he had extended his domination. This prince--who, in the silence of his solitude, amid his apparent repose, was so active and so entirely devoted to the pursuit of his vast projects-who himself directed the whole policy of his cabinet-who wrote out with his own hand the greater part of his despatches-who, in fine, was so truly king

seemed to have been endowed with so much ability and activity only for mischief. He looked with a sort of horror on the in dependence of the human mind, and believed himself called upon to destroy it everywhere; the freedom of subjects and the liberty of consciences to him appeared alike sacrilegious; he saw a revolt in every pretension to enlightenment; and as he had placed his civil and religious despotism under the safeguard of his faith, as he believed he was God's champion in destroying all liberty on the earth, all means seemed good to him, no scruple stopped him, his conscience recoiled from no cruelty, no perfidy; he went straight towards his object through more blood and more crimes than were ever lavished by any other monarch; he believed he would succeed, for he subdued province after province, he extinguished one rebellion after another in blood; but his pestilential breath dispeopled the kingdoms that were subject to him, and notwithstanding the immensity of his states, he could not keep on foot armies equal to those of any of the sovereigns whom he had succeeded in Castile, in Aragon, at Granada, in the Two Sicilies, at the Duchy of Milan, in the Low Countries, in the kingdoms of Peru and of Mexico."— Sismondi, Hist. de Français, tom. xx. p. 23.