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Sunday, August 22, 2021

Replenishing The English Fleet: August 22 -23, 1588.


Has the Spanish Armada been defeated? Lord Charles Howard, Admiral of the English fleet, assembled to defend his country from the Spanish Armada, is not at all sure that the reports are correct. Nevertheless, the Elizabeth’s councilors have ordered the army gathered at key locations along the Kentish coast be dismissed.

I would my counsel had taken place, that the forces by land had been kept together till the full of the moon had been past.[1]

After weeks of battles at sea, the Admiral needs to replenish his fleet in order to be prepared should the Armada reassemble and return to complete its mission.

The resources to pay and supply an army in the field are an enormous drain on the Royal exchequer. They must be released the moment they are no longer necessary.

The “Spanish army” — actually an army of mercenaries from various countries led by the Duke of Parma  — have been gathered in the Netherlands for an invasion of England for over a month — another very serious error on the part of Parma and his Spanish allies. It is this army for which the Armada has been formed. It is supposed to clear the seas for the invasion force to pass the English Channel on Spanish transports.

Already the army is pillaging supplies from the countryside. The promised funds from the Pope have not arrived to pay them. The Duke can neither feed nor pay them. He has tried to hold them together as long as possible in expectation of the transports. The transports do arrive. The English are aware of the danger and send fire-ships toward them. They escape but at the price of having to cut loose their anchors and chains. They will no longer serve for transport. The troops are getting especially surly. Those that have not deserted must be dismissed.

Elizabeth’s Flemish spies have been keeping her Court apprised. If the Admiral is informed, he is also aware that rumors place the bulk of the Armada in any number of locations. He has sent a plan to the Council

to bring our men, as many as conveniently we can, ashore, and there to relieve them with fresh victuals, and to supply such other their wants as we can; and upon the hearing or discovery of the Spanish fleet, we shall be able, with the help of soldiers from the shore, for to be ready within a day for the service.[2]

It is his job to be prepared for any eventuality. Foremost, he must arrange to have the resources in place for whatever plan will be adopted.

Logistics are everything. They are one of the major reasons the English will win. But they are difficult to manage. Messengers are racing across the country and Channel with letters.

The absence of the Roebuck doth hinder us wonderfully for lack of the powder in her.[3]

Vice-Admiral Drake’s ship The Roebuck has loaded a large amount of gun powder and shot, at Harwich, ordered to Dover by the Admiral. His fleet is desperately short there after so long battling at sea.

But the rumor that the largest part of the Armada has sailed north off the Scottish coast is more than a rumor. The persistent SW wind has left it no other safe choice.

The Roebuck is not yet come to the fleet, but, as I understand, she is employed by my Lord of Huntingdon in the north service, whereby we are disappointed of the powder in her.[4]

The Roebuck has been called off its delivery in order to participate in shadowing and possibly engaging above one hundred ships.

Fortunately, the Spanish ships have have even bigger problems. They have been supplied by profiteers with spoiled food. Their sailors are retching. Only a small amount of their provision is fit to eat. They are running out of potable water. They are sick and desperately hungry — in no condition to fight. They, too, are desperately short of powder and shot. The only safe destination circumstance will allow is neutral Norway.

Of course, the Spanish have impossible supply lines into the bargain. The English coordinate steady resupply of their ships. They’ve been developing a Naval supply and repair system for years. They are fighting in their home waters — rotate into English ports for provisions. Captured Spanish ships are expeditiously offloaded in those ports into English ships and warehouses.

Not that the system is perfect:

Mr. Barrey is dead, and we cannot learn where the pitch and tar is become; nor no man now to deal for those things.[5]

The pitch and tar for ship maintenance had been the responsibility of one man. No one else knows where it is stored, it would seem.

Every bit as important as shot and powder, pitch and tar, toward a battle ship’s optimal performance was its supply of beer. So much so that it, too, was a worthy subject of correspondence with so august a  governmental figure as Francis Sir Walsingham.

Mr. Darell hath been with me here, whom I have dealt withal; and I perceive it hath been refused, and upon that there were some appointed to taste it, and so found it to be sour,[6]

 It was essential that the matter be taken in hand at the highest level.

I perceive by Mr. Darell that the brewer excuseth it by the want of hops. But, Sir, the mariners who have a conceit (and I think it true, and so do all the captains here) that sour drink hath been a great cause of this infection amongst us; and, Sir, for my own part I know not which way to deal with the mariners to make them rest contented with sour beer, for nothing doth displease them more.

Think what they may, even sour beer is not to be wasted. The answer settled upon is to brew the sour beer a bit more and “to mix it with other new beer, which I hope will do well.”

 


[1] Laughton, John Knox, ed. State papers relating to the defeat of the Spanish Armada, anno 1588 (1894). Howard to Walsingham, August 22. II.143.

[2] Howard to Walsingham, August 22. Ibid, II.143.

[3] Ibid., II.143.

[4] Howard to the Council, August 22. Ibid, II.141-2.

[5] Howard to Walsingham, August 23. Ibid, II.144.

[6] Howard to Walsingham, August 26. Ibid, II.159, 160.


Also at Virtual Grub Street:

  • To Where Did Queen Elizabeth I Disappear in August 1564? July 18, 2021. “Leicestershire was in the opposite direction from London. Nichols could discover no more.”
  • Elizabeth I’s Progress to Cambridge University, 1564: Her Arrival. June 20, 2021. “The Queen would be the only woman riding a charger. It was a statement that she could rule as well as any king, including the rule of a war horse.”
  • Simnel Cake: Lenten Treat of the Ages. March 7, 2021. “Samuel Pegge sees confirmation that saffron was used in the crusts of simnel cakes in Shakespeare's Winter's Tale…”
  • Queen Elizabeth I’s Heart and the French Ambassador.  April 3, 2019.  “…the Queen of England, with the permission of her physicians, has been able to come out of her private chamber, she has permitted me… to see her…”
  • Lady Southwell on the Final Days of Queen Elizabeth I.  March 24, 2019.  “her majesty told [Lady Scrope] (commanding her to conceal the same ) that she saw, one night, in her bed, her body exceeding lean, and fearful in a light of fire.”
  • Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
  • Check out the English Renaissance Letter Index for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

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