The Queen of Scots, deeply implicated in the Babington Plot, had the previous year been beheaded in Fotheringhay Castle, and if we could beat the Armada we might be free of menace from outside England and from within. Could we hope for a few peaceful years?
I had told Linnet of Roberto’s escape. I confided in her more and more. She was now eighteen years old—a lovely, spirited girl. She was like us both—Jake and myself. I had stressed, too, how Jake had saved Roberto by sending him off in the Golden Fleece which was a noble act on his part, for she would realize his firm convictions.
“He did this for me,” I said. “It is something I shall never forget.”
Linnet with the emotional impulsiveness of the young changed toward him. She began to see him in a new light. The rough and violent man whose heart was good nonetheless. She no longer scorned him; and it was another revelation to notice that Jake was almost pathetically pleased by her change toward him.
They were wary of each other; but I think she wanted to be proud of him and he wanted her to love him.
That was how events stood on that Whitsunday morning.
The weeks that followed were frustrating—for the Spaniards did not come. The ships continued to lie in the harbor. There was friction between the admirals, so we heard.
Jake hated inactivity. He was down at the Hoe each day waiting for the signal.
News arrived that the Armada had set out from Lisbon, but the weather had so harassed the ships that it was necessary for them to shelter in Corunna for revictualing and for the repair of damage to the ships.
In England this news was greeted with delight. It showed, was the general opinion, whose side God was on.
The waiting continued. The tension was growing. I never saw a man so impatient as Jake.
“What’s the matter with the Spaniard?” he growled. “Is he afraid to come out?”
We laughed and talked of how the great Invincible Armada had been unable to withstand the weather and had been forced to retire for repairs, but I was afraid of what the inevitable battle would bring. All my life there had been this conflict over religion. All through my mother’s it had been the same. I knew this was the culmination. I feared for Jake and I knew that Edwina feared for Carlos, as Jennet did for Jacko and Romilly for Penn. Those of us who had men who would go out and do battle were naturally especially anxious. What would happen if the invader set foot on our soil we did not know. We did not reason as far as that. Deep down in our hearts we believed no invader could ever conquer our land.
But there would be a mighty battle.
We heard that the Army was assembled at Tilbury and that the Queen had ridden among her men.
Jake’s eyes gleamed with pride when he spoke of her. “She sat her horse like a soldier and she carried a truncheon. Would to God I could have been there to see her.”
“Your place is here,” I reminded him.
“Aye,” he answered, “with Drake, Frobisher and the rest.”
I remembered seeing her all those years ago when she came to the Tower of London and had said that she would be to God thankful and to men merciful. Now she, like myself, was no longer young; and the years would have taught her much, as they had taught me.
She was a woman who could assume greatness when the occasion demanded it; and God knew this occasion did.
Her speech was circulated through the land and it did much to raise our spirits. I shall remember certain parts of it all my life.
“I come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst of the heat and battle, to live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God and my Kingdom and for my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a King, and of a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain or any Prince of Europe should dare invade the borders of my realm…”
These were the words which inspired us all.
And so we waited—some in trepidation and others, like Jake, with a frustrated impatience.
Then one day—it was July by then—and the nineteenth—the news reached Plymouth. The Armada had been sighted off the Lizard.
People came out of their houses, crowding the narrow cobbled streets. Rumor was in the air. There was excitement everywhere.
Sir Francis, playing bowls on the Hoe to while away an hour or so, said he would finish the game. There was time for that, and to bear the Spaniards afterward.
With Linnet, Edwina, Romilly and Jennet, I watched the ships sail out.
None of us spoke, but each understood the feelings of the others. Our men were going out to meet the greatest challenge of their lives. Their ships looked gallant enough with their sails billowing in the wind, but I trembled when I thought of the great galleons they must meet.
The Spaniards were in the Channel; they came with their much vaunted Armada. Our ships were dwarfs compared with theirs.
But as we stood watching them we believed in victory. So confident was Admiral Drake that he could beat the Spaniards that we all shared that confidence. Men such as Jake had never doubted it; and it was said that the Spaniards were aware of that strange certainty in the English ranks. They believed it was witchcraft, conjured up by the devil dragon.
I watched Jake’s ship, the Triumphant Lion, until I could see it no more. Carlos and Jacko each commanded two of Jake’s ships.
“Oh, God,” I prayed, “we shall beat the Spaniard, I know, but send back our men safe to us.”
All now know the outcome of the battle—how the mighty and dignified galleons were no match for the jaunty little English ships, how one of Drake’s squadrons lay before the harbors of Newport and Dunkirk and stopped all transport of troops from Flanders.
We know too how the English could make no impression on those mighty galleons and craftily waited until dusk when they set small ships ablaze and sent them among the galleons, so that the Spaniards finding fire on many of their ships, cut their cables and sought to get away, whereupon the English smaller and more agile craft captured some and destroyed others, although many escaped to drift along the Channel and out to sea or be washed up on the coasts where a hostile reception awaited them.
The spirit of men such as Drake and Jake Pennlyon was undefeatable because they knew they would succeed while the Spaniard feared to fail. The Spaniards were brave men doubtless, but they were no match for the English. The English were defending their homes; the Spaniard was out for conquest. Our ships could be victualed from the shore and pinnaces were constantly making the journeys to and from them.
Against us came the greatest fleet of ships ever, up to that time, to be put on to sea. What the Spaniards called an “Invincible Armada engaged in the Great Enterprise.” And it failed.
Back came the ships to the harbor. Linnet, Damask, Penn, Romilly, Jennet, Edwina, myself, we were all there waiting, our eyes strained to see the return of the ships.
Would they all return? Could we hope that all our men could come back to us?
I looked at Edwina, who was thinking of Carlos, and I took her hand. I understood her fears, for I shared them. And I thought back to my first meeting with Jake Pennlyon on this Hoe and how determined I was to fight him with all my might.
Please, God, I prayed now, let him come back. Let me go on to the end of my life with Jake Pennlyon.
What a day of rejoicing when they all came back. The Triumphant Lion was limping a little, but she was safe.