August 19, 2025 • 16 mins
Join British naval historian Julian Stafford Corbett as he delves into the thrilling life of Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596). From humble beginnings as a farmers son to becoming Queen Elizabeths most formidable privateer and daring naval commander, Drakes journey is one of adventure and audacity. In search of the gold and silver of Spanish Peru, he bravely navigated the treacherous waters of Cape Horn, enduring losses of both men and ships in the relentless battles against nature. After seizing a treasure ship from the astonished Spaniards, he became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. As King Philip of Spain gathered his formidable Armada, Drake showcased the power of a well-strategized naval force, crippling the enemys trade and finances. Corbett captures the essence of Drake, noting that he stemmed the tide of the Spanish Empire at its fullest flood. Prepare to be captivated by this tale of courage, cunning, and maritime mastery.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section eighteen of Sir Francis Drake by Julian Corbett. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Pamel
and Agami, Chapter ten in Quests of the Spanish Armada,
Part two, From Howard downwards, the sailors were in despair
(00:20):
all through March. He and Seymour were compelled to waste
their resources with a naval demonstration off Ostend in support
of negotiations which they knew instinctively were but a trick.
Drake was kept idle at Plymouth, and it was thought
that when the moment came, he could not possibly be ready.
We can see him fuming up and down the Plymouth
(00:41):
hoe as he looked down on his half dismantled ships
growing fowler and fowler as they chafed at their moorings.
We hear him swearing and praying by turns as he
gazes seawards for a trace of the gunboats he had
sent to Finis there for intelligence that will convince his
mistress that the piece degochieation is only a trick to
disarm her. Still the weeks went by and nothing was
(01:05):
done till at the end of the month he received
orders to get ready for sea. Then, from the depth
of his disgust, he poured out one last appeal to
the Council. During his impatience striding up and down the hoe,
the true theory of naval warfare, of which he had
already a dim perception, had been growing clearer in his
(01:25):
teeming mind, and in his acknowledgment of the fresh orders,
he for the first time distinctly formulates the idea of
getting command of the sea. He fully grasped that the
invasion was to come from Parma in the Netherlands, but
no less perfectly he perceived that its feasibility hung upon
the possession of the Four Seas. If her majesty, he wrote,
(01:50):
and your lordships think that the King of Spain meaneth
any invasion in England, then doubtless his force is and
will be great in Spain, and therein he will make
his groundwork or foundation, whereby the Prince of Parma may
have the better entrance, which in mine own judgment is
most to be feared. But if there may be such
(02:10):
a stay or stop made by any means of this
fleet in Spain, that they may not come through the
seas as conquerors, which I assure myself they think to do,
then shall the Prince of Parma have such a check
Thereby as were meet with deep apologies, he urged the
folly of keeping so large a fleet blockading Parma, and
(02:31):
craved that his own division might be strengthened, that he
might go and seek the enemies of God and her
Majesty wherever they were to be found. Still struggling to
give clear utterance to the idea with which his genius
was in travail, he went on only to confuse it
with the moral effect of offensive operations, till his passion
(02:52):
altogether overcame his argument, and he told how three hundred
English flags with the Red Cross had been made in Lisbon,
which is, he bursts out a great presumption proceeding from
the haughtiness and pride of the Spaniard, and not to
be tolerated by any true natural English heart. His appeal
(03:14):
had some effect, for on its heels came a dispatch
from the commissioners at Ostend, telling how Parma had admitted
that warlike preparations were still going on in Spain, though
he vowed they were only against Drake. So an order
came down that he was to write to the Queen
direct and tell her how strong her fleet ought to
be to carry out his ideas, and how he proposed
(03:37):
to distress the fleet which was assembling at Lisbon. To
the second question, he would give no direct reply. Traders
were too thick about the Queen, and he told her
it depended upon the intelligence he got on the way
and the temper of his force when he got it
to sea. The last ensample at Kadith, he growled, in
(03:58):
the bitterness of his anger, is not of divers yet forgotten,
for one such flying now as Burah did, then will
put the hole in peril. As to the strength of
her fleet, God, increase your most excellent Majesty's forces daily,
said he. But with four more navy ships and sixteen
merchantmen that were fitting out at London, he declared himself ready,
(04:22):
through the goodness of his merciful God, to answer for
the armada. Or even as the advantage of time and
place in all martial actions was half the victory, he
offered to sail as he was and let the reinforcements
follow surly. As was the tone of his answer, the
Queen was delighted and sang his praises everywhere, but still
(04:43):
she could not make up her mind to loose her
growling dog. A fortnight later, one of the gunboats came
in with intelligence that showed the Armada was on the
eve of sailing, and Drake, in an agony of impatience,
hurried the captain up to court, urging again as a
matter of life and death, that he should be allowed
to go. The answer was a summons to town. Elizabeth
(05:08):
was now thoroughly alarmed, and no sooner was the sailor's
rough eloquence heard ringing in the council chamber than the
Queen's purpose was at last made firm. The eyes of
the government were opened to the great idea, and Howard,
with every ship that had three months victuals, was ordered
to join Drake in the west. Golden weeks had been wasted.
(05:31):
How grave the peril was those only grasped who had
to face it, and Drake knew that if the Armada
was once allowed to sail, the England he loved so
well was at the mercy of God. It was not
till May twenty third that Howard reached Plymouth. Drake was
already there in the morning light, at the head of
(05:51):
sixty sail he put out to greet the Lord Admiral,
and then as they met, went about with his whole
division and escorted his delighted chief into port, where the
combined fleet watered. And on May thirtieth, as an easterly
breeze sprung up, the two admirals put to sea in
loyal concert to try, if there yet were time, to
strike the weapon from the hand that threatened their country's life.
(06:15):
It was no easy task that was before them. Over
the sea came uncertain sounds of preparations so vast that
no one could doubt any longer where Philip's right arm was.
But where and how it would strike was still uncertain.
It might be destined for Ireland or for Scotland. It
might be meant to see some English port. It might
(06:36):
be under orders to join Parma, or to act with
the Geezes from France. It might come north about by
the Orkneys, or directly up the channel. And to watch
one route was to leave the other open. Even if
the armada's course were divined aright, the wind which brought
it must throw the English to leeward, and to reap
(06:58):
the advantage of our superior gunnery, on which the whole
hope of victory lay. The weather gage was essential for
the defending force. It was a situation as difficult as
that which outwitted Nelson himself, and one well designed to
force home Drake's idea of the command of the seas.
From the first Drake had seen the strategic and tactical
(07:20):
disadvantages of attempting to cover any of the threatened points.
To prevent those threats ever being developed was his plan,
and to effect this he saw he must go boldly
out and lie to windward of the enemy's port of departure.
Once there, he felt that even if they dared come out,
he could so handle them as they put to sea,
(07:42):
and so harass their advance, that nothing but a broken
remnant would ever reach the British coasts. As far as
men could see, it was the only chance. And, hoping
against hope that there might yet be time, the admirals
lay the course for finisterre. But their cup was not
yet full. Ere they were clear of the channel, the
wind veered to south and began to freshen to a gale,
(08:05):
and their very teeth with it came over the deserted
seas as solitary merchantmen, which announced that ten days ago
she had seen the whole Armadas stretching westerly from horizon
to horizon on a northerly wind. It was too late.
The wind which had stopped the English fleet would bring
the enemy, and there was nothing to do but to
(08:27):
stand off and on where they were. For six days,
the gale continued veering slowly, but in spite of it,
the fleet held its ground. On the seventh day it
was blowing harder than ever straight from the west, and
then fearing to be driven so far to the leeward
as to uncover Plymouth, the discomfited admirals put back. The
(08:49):
disastrous situation, which for months had been haunting Drake's dreams,
was at last waking truth. Still, the Spaniards came not,
and a ray of hope brightened the gloom. As Drake,
with the instinct of a born strategist, divined what had
happened behind the wasat of storm, he felt that what
he had seen was only a move to a rendezvous
(09:10):
at Kiruna. There was still time to strike. The conditions
were indeed more favorable than ever After the gale. The
armadem must take time for a final concentration, and backed
by Hawkins, Frobisher and Fenner, he persuaded Howard to try again.
Their determination was at once announced to the council, but
(09:30):
day after day the westerly gale continued to rage, such
as summer had never been seen. Every attempt to get
the sea failed, and ere the fleet got free. To
Drake's utter dismay, there came a peremptory order from the Queen,
absolutely forbidding the maneuver. In Drake's absence, someone had frightened
her back into the old and feudal methods, and with
(09:53):
a sharp reprimand for rashness, Howard was directed to cruise
between Spain and England and to water nowhere but i
his own coasts. Had the Queen, in her perverseness, wished
to destroy her fleet as well as paralyze it, she
could hardly have given more fitting orders. With a sullen growl,
the admirals obeyed. It was June nineteenth before they could
(10:16):
get out, and in three days they had to put
back for want of victuals. It was not till the
next evening that the provision ships arrived, and it was
fortunate they did, for the same night came news that
eighteen Spanish ships had been sighted off Silly. Without a
moment's hesitation, a few stores were flung on board the fleet, and,
(10:37):
leaving the victuallers to follow, it, pushed out to sea
again on a fresh northeasterly breeze to cut off the
straggling squadron, But again, ere they were out of the channel,
the wind chopped round to the southwest and stopped further progress.
It was the wind to bring the armada at any
moment its sails might appear, so while Howard stood off
(11:00):
and on in mid channel, Drake, with ten ships and
four or five gunboats, made a sweep down to the
bay to feel for the enemy there and to retard
their advance if he found them stealing up the French coast.
Howard had a fixed idea that the first intention of
the Armada was to join hands with the Geezes in
some French port. But though Drake bowed to the Lord
(11:22):
Admiral's superior political information from the first, his instinct told
him the movement was only exhausting the fleet to no purpose.
By this time it was known that two more stray
Spanish squadrons had been hovering about Silly, but for days
no sign of them had appeared. One of them had
even been sighted, bearing for Spain, and Drake divined the rest,
(11:45):
as though he had indeed been shown the truth in
a magic mirror. He knew that the Lake Gales had
broken up the Armada, and that it must be painfully
reassembling in the ports about Finistaire. As he paced impatiently
the deck of the Revenge, gazing out over the still
desolate sea, he saw in Vigo and Biona and Karuna
(12:06):
a confusion of shattered rigging, and heard the muttering of
landsmen sickened of the sea and raw cruise, demoralized with failure.
Into the midst he pictured himself bursting like a thunderclap
and in a storm of fire and iron, completing the
ruin which heaven had begun. In a week, he could
endure it no longer. Victuals were running out, the crews
(12:29):
on half rations were falling sick, and as every day
some poor fellow was flung overboard, they began to lose heart.
June came to an end, and then Drake rejoined the
Lord Admiral to try and prove to him with all
the force of his eloquence, how the Lord had, once more,
in his mercy, delivered the enemy into their hand. All
(12:50):
was in vain. Howard, loyal to his fatal instructions, would
do nothing but stretch out his fleet like a net
across the mouth of the Channel, and patrol his front
and flanks with gunboats. In desperation, Drake reduced his reasons
to riding and sent them home, imploring to be allowed
to go at least a little nearer to Spain, in
(13:10):
order that even if he were wrong and the Spaniards
were already on their way, he might still have some
chance of getting to winward of them before they entered
the channel. Shaken at length by his lieutenant's vehemence, Howard
ventured to stretch his scruples so far as to advance
the line outside the channel, and there on the afternoon
of the seventh a fresh northerly breeze came up behind them.
(13:34):
To Drake it was the very breadth of the Lord,
and before his passionate conviction, Howard at last gave way.
Half the fleet had but a few days provisions, but
as Drake pointed out, if they returned for more, the
other half would be just as bad. So without more ado,
away they went for finisterre, long and low. The tempter
(13:55):
must have laughed to himself as they flew before the wind.
If it only held orders or no orders, for bare
life's sake, his scrupulous commander would be compelled to revictual
from Philip's storeships. No man ever watched the wind more anxiously.
As next day's sails began to shake ominously, yards were
(14:17):
braced round, bolines were strained more and more. Yet league
by league they neared the goal. On the ninth, Ushant
was eighty leagues behind, but their labor was in vain.
A souwester was blowing in their teeth. To proceed was impossible.
To stay was starvation, and in open wonder that God
(14:38):
would have sent to souwester, Drake confessed that retreat was
the only course. So for the third time the great
Armada escaped, helpless and wind bound. It had been lying
in Koruna Bay at the mercy of the fire ships
and great guns of a fleet to windward, But now
the wished for wind had come to release it. And
(15:01):
on the twelfth, as Howard's exhausted fleet reappeared, off Plymouth,
the Duke of Medina Sidonia, in the fullness of his strength,
put out to sea untouched. Not an English saale was
there to see or hinder. An ignorant of the jeopardy
in which they stood. Howard and Drake set every hand
to work that their fleets might be ready to renew
(15:22):
the attempt together. The moment the wind was fair, a
messenger sped to court for permission. In this time, so
convincing had Drake's memorandum proved, it was not refused. By
the nineteenth they were almost ready, sick, had been landed,
crews were reinforced, the scanty stores allowed were on board,
when suddenly they were astounded with the news that the
(15:45):
armada was off the Lizard. The tables were completely turned
by the southwest wind on which Medina Sidonia was advancing.
The English were shut in port and caught in the
very same trap which Drake had meant to be the
destruction of the enemy. Clever as he was, he had
not guessed the whole truth. He could not tell that
(16:07):
the wandering squadrons were merely some stray ships that had
kept on bravely in spite of the gales to the
rendezvous Atsilly, He could not tell that the bulk of
the Armada, more faint hearted, had never passed finished there,
but had taken shelter weeks ago ere irreparable damage was done.
After all his scheming and strife with friend and foe,
(16:30):
he was taken by surprise at last, and the Armada
had reached the channel without one English gun to say
it nay. End of Section eighteen
Section eighteen of Sir Francis Drake by Julian Corbett. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Pamel
and Agami, Chapter ten in Quests of the Spanish Armada,
Part two, From Howard downwards, the sailors were in despair
(00:20):
all through March. He and Seymour were compelled to waste
their resources with a naval demonstration off Ostend in support
of negotiations which they knew instinctively were but a trick.
Drake was kept idle at Plymouth, and it was thought
that when the moment came, he could not possibly be ready.
We can see him fuming up and down the Plymouth
(00:41):
hoe as he looked down on his half dismantled ships
growing fowler and fowler as they chafed at their moorings.
We hear him swearing and praying by turns as he
gazes seawards for a trace of the gunboats he had
sent to Finis there for intelligence that will convince his
mistress that the piece degochieation is only a trick to
disarm her. Still the weeks went by and nothing was
(01:05):
done till at the end of the month he received
orders to get ready for sea. Then, from the depth
of his disgust, he poured out one last appeal to
the Council. During his impatience striding up and down the hoe,
the true theory of naval warfare, of which he had
already a dim perception, had been growing clearer in his
(01:25):
teeming mind, and in his acknowledgment of the fresh orders,
he for the first time distinctly formulates the idea of
getting command of the sea. He fully grasped that the
invasion was to come from Parma in the Netherlands, but
no less perfectly he perceived that its feasibility hung upon
the possession of the Four Seas. If her majesty, he wrote,
(01:50):
and your lordships think that the King of Spain meaneth
any invasion in England, then doubtless his force is and
will be great in Spain, and therein he will make
his groundwork or foundation, whereby the Prince of Parma may
have the better entrance, which in mine own judgment is
most to be feared. But if there may be such
(02:10):
a stay or stop made by any means of this
fleet in Spain, that they may not come through the
seas as conquerors, which I assure myself they think to do,
then shall the Prince of Parma have such a check
Thereby as were meet with deep apologies, he urged the
folly of keeping so large a fleet blockading Parma, and
(02:31):
craved that his own division might be strengthened, that he
might go and seek the enemies of God and her
Majesty wherever they were to be found. Still struggling to
give clear utterance to the idea with which his genius
was in travail, he went on only to confuse it
with the moral effect of offensive operations, till his passion
(02:52):
altogether overcame his argument, and he told how three hundred
English flags with the Red Cross had been made in Lisbon,
which is, he bursts out a great presumption proceeding from
the haughtiness and pride of the Spaniard, and not to
be tolerated by any true natural English heart. His appeal
(03:14):
had some effect, for on its heels came a dispatch
from the commissioners at Ostend, telling how Parma had admitted
that warlike preparations were still going on in Spain, though
he vowed they were only against Drake. So an order
came down that he was to write to the Queen
direct and tell her how strong her fleet ought to
be to carry out his ideas, and how he proposed
(03:37):
to distress the fleet which was assembling at Lisbon. To
the second question, he would give no direct reply. Traders
were too thick about the Queen, and he told her
it depended upon the intelligence he got on the way
and the temper of his force when he got it
to sea. The last ensample at Kadith, he growled, in
(03:58):
the bitterness of his anger, is not of divers yet forgotten,
for one such flying now as Burah did, then will
put the hole in peril. As to the strength of
her fleet, God, increase your most excellent Majesty's forces daily,
said he. But with four more navy ships and sixteen
merchantmen that were fitting out at London, he declared himself ready,
(04:22):
through the goodness of his merciful God, to answer for
the armada. Or even as the advantage of time and
place in all martial actions was half the victory, he
offered to sail as he was and let the reinforcements
follow surly. As was the tone of his answer, the
Queen was delighted and sang his praises everywhere, but still
(04:43):
she could not make up her mind to loose her
growling dog. A fortnight later, one of the gunboats came
in with intelligence that showed the Armada was on the
eve of sailing, and Drake, in an agony of impatience,
hurried the captain up to court, urging again as a
matter of life and death, that he should be allowed
to go. The answer was a summons to town. Elizabeth
(05:08):
was now thoroughly alarmed, and no sooner was the sailor's
rough eloquence heard ringing in the council chamber than the
Queen's purpose was at last made firm. The eyes of
the government were opened to the great idea, and Howard,
with every ship that had three months victuals, was ordered
to join Drake in the west. Golden weeks had been wasted.
(05:31):
How grave the peril was those only grasped who had
to face it, and Drake knew that if the Armada
was once allowed to sail, the England he loved so
well was at the mercy of God. It was not
till May twenty third that Howard reached Plymouth. Drake was
already there in the morning light, at the head of
(05:51):
sixty sail he put out to greet the Lord Admiral,
and then as they met, went about with his whole
division and escorted his delighted chief into port, where the
combined fleet watered. And on May thirtieth, as an easterly
breeze sprung up, the two admirals put to sea in
loyal concert to try, if there yet were time, to
strike the weapon from the hand that threatened their country's life.
(06:15):
It was no easy task that was before them. Over
the sea came uncertain sounds of preparations so vast that
no one could doubt any longer where Philip's right arm was.
But where and how it would strike was still uncertain.
It might be destined for Ireland or for Scotland. It
might be meant to see some English port. It might
(06:36):
be under orders to join Parma, or to act with
the Geezes from France. It might come north about by
the Orkneys, or directly up the channel. And to watch
one route was to leave the other open. Even if
the armada's course were divined aright, the wind which brought
it must throw the English to leeward, and to reap
(06:58):
the advantage of our superior gunnery, on which the whole
hope of victory lay. The weather gage was essential for
the defending force. It was a situation as difficult as
that which outwitted Nelson himself, and one well designed to
force home Drake's idea of the command of the seas.
From the first Drake had seen the strategic and tactical
(07:20):
disadvantages of attempting to cover any of the threatened points.
To prevent those threats ever being developed was his plan,
and to effect this he saw he must go boldly
out and lie to windward of the enemy's port of departure.
Once there, he felt that even if they dared come out,
he could so handle them as they put to sea,
(07:42):
and so harass their advance, that nothing but a broken
remnant would ever reach the British coasts. As far as
men could see, it was the only chance. And, hoping
against hope that there might yet be time, the admirals
lay the course for finisterre. But their cup was not
yet full. Ere they were clear of the channel, the
wind veered to south and began to freshen to a gale,
(08:05):
and their very teeth with it came over the deserted
seas as solitary merchantmen, which announced that ten days ago
she had seen the whole Armadas stretching westerly from horizon
to horizon on a northerly wind. It was too late.
The wind which had stopped the English fleet would bring
the enemy, and there was nothing to do but to
(08:27):
stand off and on where they were. For six days,
the gale continued veering slowly, but in spite of it,
the fleet held its ground. On the seventh day it
was blowing harder than ever straight from the west, and
then fearing to be driven so far to the leeward
as to uncover Plymouth, the discomfited admirals put back. The
(08:49):
disastrous situation, which for months had been haunting Drake's dreams,
was at last waking truth. Still, the Spaniards came not,
and a ray of hope brightened the gloom. As Drake,
with the instinct of a born strategist, divined what had
happened behind the wasat of storm, he felt that what
he had seen was only a move to a rendezvous
(09:10):
at Kiruna. There was still time to strike. The conditions
were indeed more favorable than ever After the gale. The
armadem must take time for a final concentration, and backed
by Hawkins, Frobisher and Fenner, he persuaded Howard to try again.
Their determination was at once announced to the council, but
(09:30):
day after day the westerly gale continued to rage, such
as summer had never been seen. Every attempt to get
the sea failed, and ere the fleet got free. To
Drake's utter dismay, there came a peremptory order from the Queen,
absolutely forbidding the maneuver. In Drake's absence, someone had frightened
her back into the old and feudal methods, and with
(09:53):
a sharp reprimand for rashness, Howard was directed to cruise
between Spain and England and to water nowhere but i
his own coasts. Had the Queen, in her perverseness, wished
to destroy her fleet as well as paralyze it, she
could hardly have given more fitting orders. With a sullen growl,
the admirals obeyed. It was June nineteenth before they could
(10:16):
get out, and in three days they had to put
back for want of victuals. It was not till the
next evening that the provision ships arrived, and it was
fortunate they did, for the same night came news that
eighteen Spanish ships had been sighted off Silly. Without a
moment's hesitation, a few stores were flung on board the fleet, and,
(10:37):
leaving the victuallers to follow, it, pushed out to sea
again on a fresh northeasterly breeze to cut off the
straggling squadron, But again, ere they were out of the channel,
the wind chopped round to the southwest and stopped further progress.
It was the wind to bring the armada at any
moment its sails might appear, so while Howard stood off
(11:00):
and on in mid channel, Drake, with ten ships and
four or five gunboats, made a sweep down to the
bay to feel for the enemy there and to retard
their advance if he found them stealing up the French coast.
Howard had a fixed idea that the first intention of
the Armada was to join hands with the Geezes in
some French port. But though Drake bowed to the Lord
(11:22):
Admiral's superior political information from the first, his instinct told
him the movement was only exhausting the fleet to no purpose.
By this time it was known that two more stray
Spanish squadrons had been hovering about Silly, but for days
no sign of them had appeared. One of them had
even been sighted, bearing for Spain, and Drake divined the rest,
(11:45):
as though he had indeed been shown the truth in
a magic mirror. He knew that the Lake Gales had
broken up the Armada, and that it must be painfully
reassembling in the ports about Finistaire. As he paced impatiently
the deck of the Revenge, gazing out over the still
desolate sea, he saw in Vigo and Biona and Karuna
(12:06):
a confusion of shattered rigging, and heard the muttering of
landsmen sickened of the sea and raw cruise, demoralized with failure.
Into the midst he pictured himself bursting like a thunderclap
and in a storm of fire and iron, completing the
ruin which heaven had begun. In a week, he could
endure it no longer. Victuals were running out, the crews
(12:29):
on half rations were falling sick, and as every day
some poor fellow was flung overboard, they began to lose heart.
June came to an end, and then Drake rejoined the
Lord Admiral to try and prove to him with all
the force of his eloquence, how the Lord had, once more,
in his mercy, delivered the enemy into their hand. All
(12:50):
was in vain. Howard, loyal to his fatal instructions, would
do nothing but stretch out his fleet like a net
across the mouth of the Channel, and patrol his front
and flanks with gunboats. In desperation, Drake reduced his reasons
to riding and sent them home, imploring to be allowed
to go at least a little nearer to Spain, in
(13:10):
order that even if he were wrong and the Spaniards
were already on their way, he might still have some
chance of getting to winward of them before they entered
the channel. Shaken at length by his lieutenant's vehemence, Howard
ventured to stretch his scruples so far as to advance
the line outside the channel, and there on the afternoon
of the seventh a fresh northerly breeze came up behind them.
(13:34):
To Drake it was the very breadth of the Lord,
and before his passionate conviction, Howard at last gave way.
Half the fleet had but a few days provisions, but
as Drake pointed out, if they returned for more, the
other half would be just as bad. So without more ado,
away they went for finisterre, long and low. The tempter
(13:55):
must have laughed to himself as they flew before the wind.
If it only held orders or no orders, for bare
life's sake, his scrupulous commander would be compelled to revictual
from Philip's storeships. No man ever watched the wind more anxiously.
As next day's sails began to shake ominously, yards were
(14:17):
braced round, bolines were strained more and more. Yet league
by league they neared the goal. On the ninth, Ushant
was eighty leagues behind, but their labor was in vain.
A souwester was blowing in their teeth. To proceed was impossible.
To stay was starvation, and in open wonder that God
(14:38):
would have sent to souwester, Drake confessed that retreat was
the only course. So for the third time the great
Armada escaped, helpless and wind bound. It had been lying
in Koruna Bay at the mercy of the fire ships
and great guns of a fleet to windward, But now
the wished for wind had come to release it. And
(15:01):
on the twelfth, as Howard's exhausted fleet reappeared, off Plymouth,
the Duke of Medina Sidonia, in the fullness of his strength,
put out to sea untouched. Not an English saale was
there to see or hinder. An ignorant of the jeopardy
in which they stood. Howard and Drake set every hand
to work that their fleets might be ready to renew
(15:22):
the attempt together. The moment the wind was fair, a
messenger sped to court for permission. In this time, so
convincing had Drake's memorandum proved, it was not refused. By
the nineteenth they were almost ready, sick, had been landed,
crews were reinforced, the scanty stores allowed were on board,
when suddenly they were astounded with the news that the
(15:45):
armada was off the Lizard. The tables were completely turned
by the southwest wind on which Medina Sidonia was advancing.
The English were shut in port and caught in the
very same trap which Drake had meant to be the
destruction of the enemy. Clever as he was, he had
not guessed the whole truth. He could not tell that
(16:07):
the wandering squadrons were merely some stray ships that had
kept on bravely in spite of the gales to the
rendezvous Atsilly, He could not tell that the bulk of
the Armada, more faint hearted, had never passed finished there,
but had taken shelter weeks ago ere irreparable damage was done.
After all his scheming and strife with friend and foe,
(16:30):
he was taken by surprise at last, and the Armada
had reached the channel without one English gun to say
it nay. End of Section eighteen
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