The Pirate Queen (48 page)

Mendoza was told immediately, and he penned an urgent advice to Philip that “the Queen of England’s secretary writes to the new confidant [Stafford] telling him to be careful what reports he sends from here…the Queen had not decided anything about sending out the fleet, as the intelligence sent by her ambassador here had cooled her.”
⁸

Ten days later “true advices from England” were received by Mendoza that proclaimed:

On the 27
^th
March proclamation was made in London ordering the instant embarkation of the crews and troops of the 10 ships with Francis Drake. Of these 10 ships, four belonged to the Queen, their burden being respectively 400, 300 and 120 tons; very well armed with bronze guns. The others are merchantmen, the largest 200 tons, but most of them 120 to 150 tons, with iron pieces. The queen’s flagship took out 200 men…Drake went on board near Dover, and sailed with the ships to Plymouth, where the fleet was to rendezvous. Off the Isle of Wight he was joined by 12 merchant ships which had been sent by the Queen, and they all proceeded together to Plymouth. They take victuals for over four months…Drake took orders for the ships which might be in the Western ports, or at sea with letters of marque [letters of reprisal], to accompany him…so that altogether they hoped to enter Spanish waters with 60 sail and about 3,000 men, besides those who might be in the ships bearing the letters of marque…they are going to prevent the junction of his Majesty’s fleet in Spain, destroying a portion of it, as it will have to be fitted out in various ports. Others say the design is to intercept the Indian flotillas, and this seems the most probable.
⁹

But it was too late.
El Draco
had set sail two weeks before with his fleet to “singe the beard of the King of Spain.” It was an exercise that Drake embraced with relish, as he did every opportunity for retribution in his personal war. As had become her custom, Elizabeth set about to publicly disassociate herself from Drake’s secret mission, despite the fact that she had just sent him out with sealed orders “to impeach the purpose of the Spanish fleet and stop their meeting at Lisbon, distressing their ships within their havens, and returning to England with the plunder.”
¹⁰

By now Drake knew that the queen’s decisions could be transitory, and for this reason he fled London with the Portuguese pretender, literally riding on his coattails, begging to come along. But Drake knew that it was no time to get diverted by Antonio’s wild assertions that all of Portugal would rise up behind him. Sir Francis and his combined fleet set sail on April 12, 1587, from Plymouth, leaving the Portuguese pretender to kick his heels in the West Country of England.

It did not take Drake’s naval genius to know that the rumors of Philip’s Armada were true, and that the time for diplomacy had passed. As prime defender of the Catholic faith, Philip had had his hand forced with the swing of the Queen of Scots’ executioner’s blade, and everyone—including his vacillating queen—knew that England was already at war. Elizabeth’s counter-orders, written in her own hand, to “forbear to enter forcibly into any of the said king’s ports or havens, or to offer violence to any of his towns or shipping within harboring, or to do any act of hostility upon the land. And yet, notwithstanding this direction, her pleasure is that both you and such of her subjects as serve there under you should do your best endeavour (avoiding as much as may lie in you the effusion of Christian blood) to get into your possession such shipping of the said king or his subjects as you shall find at sea” were rushed out to the admiral on one of her finest remaining pinnaces.
¹¹

It was vintage Elizabeth. And it encapsulated her desire to have her cake and eat it, to wage peace as if it were war, and to try to lull her enemies into believing that she would not knowingly take up arms against them. Yet, the amended order was sent out a full nine days after Drake had sailed. Her intended subterfuge now complete, all Elizabeth—and the country—could do was wait and pray. Walsingham tried to throw oil on troubled waters by claiming that Drake was heading for the West Indies to “harry” the West Indies fleet of Spain. The queen herself enhanced the misinformation when she dismissed these rumors as fantasy, confirming to the Venetian ambassador that Drake had not “left London for Plymouth to gather a powerful fleet with a view to meeting and fighting the Peruvian flotilla, but had sailed instead for Constantinople.”
¹²

While Philip tried to enjoy his fragrant garden, Elizabeth, in her turn, rambled through her chilly palace at Whitehall, more ill-tempered than usual. Only her daily horseback riding and hunting brought her some relief from the tension. Perhaps she had acted rashly? Had she played her cards well? Would Drake let her down? She was both empowered and powerless. Elizabeth was now fifty-four. All she had worked for her entire life was in play. Worst of all, she hated being backed into a corner almost as much as she loathed war.

Drake, in the meantime, was making good progress. Aside from a storm off Finisterre, where at least one ship was lost, the voyage had gone swiftly and smoothly, and Drake had arrived off the coast of Cadiz within eighteen days without alerting the Spaniards. The bulk of the flotilla still lagged badly behind the
Elizabeth Bonaventure
due to the Finisterre storm when Drake called in his seasoned second in command, William Burroughs, to his cabin for a council of war. Cadiz lay just over the horizon ahead, Drake pointed, and the flotilla at the horizon behind them. Burroughs waited before replying. Unbeknown to Drake he had become his lieutenant general at Burghley’s specific request. Drake explained that the time to attack was now. Burroughs was of the opinion that their number was dangerously low, and it was best to wait for the fleet to catch up to them before attacking the Spanish port. First thing in the morning would be better. Drake railed at him that it
was tactically wrong to lose the crucial element of surprise, and categorically overruled Burroughs. The order for attack was given at four
P.M.
on the afternoon of April 29.

At precisely that moment, Philip was shambling through his sweet-scented gardens at Aranjuez, ignoring the urgent dispatch from Mendoza in Paris. It warned the king that Drake “was to try to prevent the junction of your Majesty’s fleet, which had to be equipped in various ports, and if they succeed in breaking up a portion of it, then to proceed on the Indian route and encounter the flotillas. To this end they had let out a few words to Drake about Cadiz being a good port to burn the shipping in, if a good fleet were taken thither.”
¹³
Even if Philip had read the urgent message, he would have been unable to stop Elizabeth’s admiral.

As the favorable winds blew Drake’s fleet within view of Cadiz harbor, its inhabitants were enjoying some street players performing a comedy in the large central town square. A tumbler measured his muscles against the comedians’, to the general amusement of the crowd, while the surrounding shops burst to breaking point with customers who had had too much to drink. Someone pointed to the approaching ships. It must be the valiant fleet of Juan Martínez de Recalde and his Biscayans, another replied. Only when the ships were counted did the people of Cadiz begin to think that it could be their enemies, the
Luteranos
, perhaps even
El Draco
.

Despite the relaxed atmosphere, the harbor was not unguarded. Six galleys of the Spanish fleet had docked from Gibraltar a few days earlier, and had spread themselves across the upper bay, in the shadow of the old castle. Their commander, Don Pedro de Acuña, drew these ships across the entrance to the bay, oars glinting in the late afternoon sunlight, in preparation for the attack. Another ship broke ranks and, with its harquebusiers and pikemen at their battle stations in the forecastle, prepared to stop the hostile fleet. Drake’s long-distance guns struck them midships in response. The English banners were broken out, and Drake’s trumpets and drum hailed their presence from the quarterdeck of the
Elizabeth Bonaventure.

The townspeople watched in utter disbelief. Whispers of
El Draco
became shrieks of “Drake, the Dragon!” in no time. Orders were shouted for the women, children, and the aged to take refuge in the castle. Pandemonium broke out as the people of Cadiz fled
for their lives. Fearful of the terrified “mob” running toward him, the captain of the guard in the castle shut his gates to the panicked crowd. Twenty-five women and children were trampled to death before he came to his senses and let them in.

Meanwhile, the men of the town formed themselves into companies to defend the port in the event of Drake landing, but without adequate harbor defenses they couldn’t have held out much hope of winning. Murmurs between the frightened men claimed that the formidable galleys of the Spanish empire were superior to Drake’s sailing ships. But the Spanish galleons were huge hulks, with forecastles overflowing with soldiers and short-range cannon, unable to maneuver swiftly in rolling seas or close combat. What they had not appreciated was that any of Drake’s seven heaviest sailing ships could heave more firepower at them in a single broadside than all of the Spanish galleons put together—and that they could heave it much more accurately and a great deal further. Even if their number had been greater, the Spaniards could never have beaten the more technically advanced, more heavily armed English vessels. Hawkins’s redesign of the English fleet would stand up admirably to the battlefield conditions.

The Spanish galleys limped into anchor between the old fort of Cadiz and St. Mary’s Port, some four miles to the northeast of Cadiz harbor. There the waters were shallow, and the defenders regrouped and mounted skirmishes against the plundering English throughout the night. The Spanish shore guns pounded the harbor waters, with not an Englishman nor English ship injured. Excuses for this appalling lack of force were later said to be due to the fact that Spanish gunpowder was expensive and unreliable, and the men firing the weapons were inexperienced.

Even in these threatening circumstances, and against direct orders from the queen, Drake did not seek to destroy the remaining merchant vessels in harbor. Instead, he huddled the ships together and had most of the sixty vessels boarded to take their cargo as plunder. Evidently, it was hard to break old habits. Some of these cargo ships were destined to join the Armada at Lisbon, including five
urcas
fully laden with wine and biscuit, and a number of Dutch hulks. The Dutch vessels had been confiscated by the Spanish and pressed into Philip’s service for his great invasion force. There were
also ships waiting to join the fleet sailing for the Americas. Instead, Drake ordered his men to remove the Xerez wine (sherry) from the ships as well as all the other provisions they could load.

Throughout the night the Spanish took aim at Drake’s fleet, but cornered only Burroughs’s ship, the
Golden Lion
, when a cannon ball hit her hull. Drake sent the
Rainbow
with six merchantmen and his own pinnace to protect her and bring her to safety, cursing Burroughs for his “treachery.” By morning, the wind had died away, leaving Drake and his men pathetically becalmed and in real danger. At midday, the Duke of Medina Sidonia and his men arrived to rescue Cadiz. For twelve hours he tried with fire ships to pierce Drake’s defenses, but to no avail. Then the wind picked up again shortly after midnight, and Drake’s fleet sailed from the harbor with the Spanish in pursuit. Drake turned and lay anchor, and again, despite heavy fire from the Spaniards, the
Elizabeth Bonaventure
remained unscathed. At dawn, prisoners were exchanged, Medina Sidonia gave the English admiral a present of wine and sweetmeats, and Drake sailed off in the direction of Cape St. Vincent and the Azores.
¹⁴

An estimate prepared by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, for Philip’s eyes only, listed twenty-four vessels lost, valued at 172,000 ducats, including their cargoes ($11.90 million or £6.43 million today). “The loss,” Philip said, “was not very great, but the daring of the attempt was very great indeed.” Drake believed that he had sunk thirty-seven ships. But even this estimate doesn’t tell the full story.
¹⁵

Sir Francis’s solemn vow to Elizabeth was to defeat the Spanish fleet and to reward the private investors and crew through plunder. Until this point, neither had really been achieved. Although the Spanish estimated some twenty-four ships destroyed—including an impressive fighting galleon belonging to the Armada commander, the Marquis of Santa Cruz—some sixty ships remained seaworthy at Cadiz. Considering that the English looted, burned, and sank the ships at will, it remains a mystery why Drake didn’t destroy the entire fleet. If only he had scuttled them…

So why did Drake flagrantly disregard his commitment to Elizabeth? Surely Drake had learned in Cadiz that the
urcas
and the other merchant ships were there to join the rest of the Armada
in Lisbon before sailing to England. Why did he not destroy these ships, too? Like so many skirmishes clouded by the fog of war, the answers remain unclear. Most likely, it was because Drake had a sniff of greater glory to come. He had learned from his prisoners that Juan Martínez de Recalde, Spain’s most able naval officer after the great Santa Cruz himself, was somewhere off Cape St. Vincent with a squadron half the size of Drake’s. And so, after ten days in an orgy of plunder in and around Cadiz, Drake’s fleet sailed west toward Recalde and glory. It was a unique opportunity for Sir Francis to face off the legendary Recalde with the odds stacked in his favor and perhaps seize the flota he was rumored to be accompanying. Yet even if the flota hadn’t sailed under Recalde, if he could neutralize the talented Spaniard, Drake must have thought that the threat imposed by Spain later would be greatly reduced.