THE SPANISH MENACE 



with our ships ready to burn his towns and ravage his country — and they 

 were quite confident that they could beat him. The confidence of the 

 men is a good indication of how much the understanding of maritime 

 matters had grown within a few decades, and the realisation of the seamen 

 that they were more than a match for soldiers at sea. 



The Composition of the Armada. 



There is a good deal of misconception as to the composition of the 

 Armada, and also as to how it compared with the British ships which met 

 and routed it. It was really a Latin rather than a Spanish Armada, for 

 all the Latin States were combed for its ships and a number hired from 

 outside. The main squadron, commanded by the Duke himself, was the 

 Armada of Portugal, and consisted of twelve big men-of-war. Against 

 the stories of the huge Spanish ships and the tiny English ones it may be 

 mentioned that only two units of this fleet measured a thousand tons. 

 The second squadron as regards importance was the Armada of Biscay, 

 commanded by Juan Martinez de Recalde, Vice-Admiral of the Fleet. 

 It consisted of fourteen warships, one of them of over a thousand tons 

 and four of them of only twenty apiece. Thirdly, there was the Armada 

 of the Galleons of Castile, under Diego Flores de Valdez — sixteen ships 

 varying from eight hundred and eighty-two tons to seventy-five. Don 

 Pedro de Valdez commanded the ships of Andalusia, eleven vessels 

 headed by the famous Niiestra Senora del Rosario, of one thousand one 

 hundred and fifty tons. The Armada of Guipuzcoa brought another 

 twelve ships, and then there were ten more from the Levant. The fleet 

 of hulks consisted of twenty-three ships, some of them more powerfully 

 armed and manned than the men-of-war, and many of them hailing from 

 the Hanse towns. Two and twenty pataches and zabras, four big 

 galleasses of Naples, and four small Portuguese galleys completed the 

 fleet. A hundred and twenty-eight ships carrying 29,522 sailors, rowers, 

 and soldiers. The size of the ships of the Naples contingent is not 

 known, but apart from them there were only seven ships of over a 

 thousand tons apiece, and this is probably the total number. The 

 English had two. 



The English Fleet. 



The backbone of the defending fleet, which was put under the com- 

 mand of Lord Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral of England, 

 consisted of thirty-four men-of-war. Two of them were of over a 

 thousand tons and another six of six hundred and over, so that in point 

 of size the enemy had a big but not an overwhelming advantage. Our 

 ships were better armed, however, and our men were better trained in 

 gunnery, while in seaworthiness and weatherliness we had a huge 

 advantage. Under Sir Francis Drake in the Revenge were thirty-four 

 merchant ships of all sorts, but some of them were every bit as fine as 

 men-of-war of the same size, for ships which sailed to the Levant and 

 the West never knew what they would meet and had to be prepared 

 to defend themselves against vastly superior forces. The City of London 

 supplied thirty more merchant ships ranging in size from three hundred 



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