History of the United Netherlands, 1588c | Page 5

ships, eleven thousand Spanish
veterans, as many more recruits, partly Spanish, partly Portuguese,
2000 grandees, as many galley-slaves, and three hundred barefooted
friars and inquisitors.
The plan was simple. Medina Sidonia was to proceed straight from

Lisbon to Calais roads: there he was to wait: for the Duke of Parma,
who was to come forth from Newport, Sluys, and Dunkerk, bringing
with him his 17,000 veterans, and to assume the chief command of the
whole expedition. They were then to cross the channel to Dover, land
the army of Parma, reinforced with 6000 Spaniards from the fleet, and
with these 23,000 men Alexander was to march at once upon London.
Medina Sidonia was to seize and fortify the Isle of Wight, guard the
entrance of the harbours against any interference from the Dutch and
English fleets, and--so soon as the conquest of England had been
effected--he was to proceed to Ireland. It had been the wish of Sir
William Stanley that Ireland should be subjugated first, as a basis of
operations against England; but this had been overruled. The intrigues
of Mendoza and Farnese, too, with the Catholic nobles of Scotland, had
proved, after all, unsuccessful. King James had yielded to superior
offers of money and advancement held out to him by Elizabeth, and
was now, in Alexander's words, a confirmed heretic.
There was no course left, therefore, but to conquer England at once. A
strange omission had however been made in the plan from first to last.
The commander of the whole expedition was the Duke of Parma: on his
head was the whole responsibility. Not a gun was to be fired--if it could
be avoided--until be had come forth with his veterans to make his
junction with the Invincible Armada off Calais. Yet there was no
arrangement whatever to enable him to come forth--not the slightest
provision to effect that junction. It would almost seem that the
letter-writer of the Escorial had been quite ignorant of the existence of
the Dutch fleets off Dunkerk, Newport, and Flushing, although he had
certainly received information enough of this formidable obstacle to his
plan.
"Most joyful I shall be," said Farnese-writing on one of the days when
he had seemed most convinced by Valentine Dale's arguments, and
driven to despair by his postulates--"to see myself with these soldiers
on English ground, where, with God's help, I hope to accomplish your
Majesty's demands." He was much troubled however to find doubts
entertained at the last moment as to his 6000 Spaniards; and certainly it
hardly needed an argument to prove that the invasion of England with
but 17,000 soldiers was a somewhat hazardous scheme. Yet the pilot
Moresini had brought him letters from Medina Sidonia, in which the

Duke expressed hesitation about parting with these 6000 veterans;
unless the English fleet should have been previously destroyed, and had
also again expressed his hope that Parma would be punctual to the
rendezvous. Alexander immediately combated these views in letters to
Medina and to the King. He avowed that he would not depart one tittle
from the plan originally laid down. The 6000 men, and more if possible,
were to be furnished him, and the Spanish Armada was to protect his
own flotilla, and to keep the channel clear of enemies. No other scheme
was possible, he said, for it was clear that his collection of small
flat-bottomed river-boats and hoys could not even make the passage,
except in smooth weather. They could not contend with a storm, much
less with the enemy's ships, which would destroy them utterly in case
of a meeting, without his being able to avail himself of his
soldiers--who would be so closely packed as to be hardly moveable--or
of any human help. The preposterous notion that he should come out
with his flotilla to make a junction with Medina off Calais, was over
and over again denounced by Alexander with vehemence and bitterness,
and most boding expressions were used by him as to the probable result,
were such a delusion persisted in.
Every possible precaution therefore but one had been taken. The King
of France--almost at the same instant in which Guise had been
receiving his latest instructions from the Escorial for dethroning and
destroying that monarch--had been assured by Philip of his inalienable
affection; had been informed of the object of this great naval
expedition--which was not by any means, as Mendoza had stated to
Henry, an enterprise against France or England, but only a determined
attempt to clear the sea, once for all, of these English pirates who had
done so much damage for years past on the high seas--and had been
requested, in case any Spanish ship should be driven by stress of
weather into French ports, to afford them that comfort and protection to
which the