But Antonio put a brave face on matters, and was all eagerness to push on to his faithful capital of Lisbon, which he was confident awaited him with open arms. His confidence to a certain extent seems to have been shared by Norris, and here the second great mistake of the expedition was made. The first vital error was the fruitless waste of time at Corunna; the second was the resolution now arrived at by Norris, entirely against Drake's judgment, to march from Peniche overland forty-two miles to Lisbon. Drake, true to the sea and to the tactics by which he had so often beaten the Spaniards, was in favour of pushing on to Lisbon by sea, letting three or four fireships drift about the castle of São Gian, which commanded the entrance to the harbour, so that the smoke should spoil the aim of the guns, and then make a dash for the city—and doubtless, thought Drake, for the galleon, with its million gold crowns, lying in front of the India house. Dom Antonio, whose one idea was to keep foot on the land where he was king, sided with Norris. In vain Drake pointed out that they had no baggage train or proper provisions for a march through an enemy's country; that they had only one weak squadron of cavalry, of which the cattle was out of condition; that they had no fitting field artillery; and that once inland they would lose the support and protection of the fleet.
It was all of no avail; Dom Antonio and Norris had their way, and a single company was left to garrison Peniche,[25] supported by six ships, whilst the whole of the land forces were to march to Lisbon, and Drake undertook to bring the rest of the fleet to Cascaes, at the mouth of the river, when the weather would allow him to do so.
During the night after the landing, some cavalry under Captain Alarcon had joined the Spaniards, and a force of Portuguese militia had also been sent in by Don Luis Alencastro, but they soon deserted their colours and left their officers to shift for themselves. The next morning at four o'clock Captain Alarcon and a few of the Spanish cavalry reconnoitred the position at Peniche, but found the enemy too many for them, and could only scour back as hard as they could ride to Luis Alencastro, the Grand-Commander of the Order of Christ, who was endeavouring to reorganise a body of Portuguese a few miles off, on the road to Lisbon. But terrible tales of the strength of the English had already spread; and when Alarcon and Guzman reached the Grand-Commander they found his hasty levies in a panic at the story that Drake had brought with him nine hundred great Irish dogs as fierce as lions, and "capable of eating up a world of folks." So they flatly refused to stir; and the Grand-Commander could do no more than hasten back to Lisbon to inform the Cardinal-Archduke Albert of the state of affairs, whilst Guzman, with the troops, fell back upon Torres-Vedras, to hold if possible the road to Lisbon.
In the meanwhile the capital was in a state of intense excitement. The native inhabitants, with a lively recollection of the sacking of the city by Alba, flocked to the other side of the Tagus, notwithstanding the strict orders of the Cardinal-Archduke to the contrary. Provisions and munitions of war were hastily sent from Spain, and the Prior Fernando de Toledo was already on the move, slowly bringing such troops as he could muster for the relief of Lisbon, whilst the castles and walls of the city were put into a state of defence. The Castilians, few in number and intensely hated by the townsfolk, knew that in a fight the brunt would fall upon them, and that the Portuguese, even though they might not help the enemy, and this was by no means certain, would not raise a finger to support the dominion of Philip. The priests went from house to house, strong adherents of Dom Antonio almost to a man, whispering that the English were not, after all, such bad people; that there were many Catholics amongst them who were better Christians than the Castilians themselves, and, as the Spanish diarist says, other things of the sort which will not bear repeating. To the well-to-do they said that as soon as a native king was on the throne their wealth would enormously increase, whilst the poor were told that "fishing in troubled waters was profitable to the fisherman."
On the other hand, the Archduke, knowing the people with whom he had to deal, established a veritable reign of terror, and sacrificed without mercy—often without evidence—any person who was even suspected of open sympathy with the invaders, although it was well known in Madrid that the populace of Lisbon had tacitly agreed to open the gates to Dom Antonio and to massacre the Spaniards on his approach. Some Portuguese nobles had left the Archduke on the first landing of Dom Antonio, but, finding that most of their order had been terrorised into quiescence, returned to Lisbon and tendered their submission. They were at once beheaded or imprisoned, and the rest became more slavish than ever in their professions of attachment to the Archduke. Terrible stories were spread at the same time of the "impious abominations" of the English heretics, and the dreadful fate that awaited all Catholics if the invader succeeded, until, as my Portuguese diarist says, "there was not even a loafer on the quay who did not know that he would be cast out or ruined if the English came." But it was all insufficient to make them willing to fight. The exodus still continued, and under cover of night the people stole across the river by thousands, and a boat whose usual freight was two ducats could not now be hired under fifty, whilst a bullock-cart and bullocks which could be bought right out in normal times for fifty ducats now charged sixty for a single journey to Aldea Gallega, on the other side of the Tagus. The people of the provinces, says my Portuguese diarist, oppressed the flying citizens more than the English, until the scandal became so great that the Archduke had to interfere and check their rapacity. Under some excuse or another every Portuguese was anxious to get away and leave the fighting to be done by some one else. The Portuguese diarist stoutly denies that his countrymen were cowards or traitors, but always explains that the common people could not have risen without the lead of the native nobles; and we have seen the methods by which they were terrorised and made powerless. The Spaniard, on the other hand, makes no secret of his contempt for the white-livered Lisbonenses, and uses much strong language about them. My Portuguese diarist greatly resents this feeling, and gives a little personal experience of his own to show how harsh were the words used by the Castilians towards the craven citizens. "On the morning," he says, "that the enemy fled I went up to the castle to get some things of mine out of my boxes which I had left there in the rooms of one of the officers, where I had determined to await my fate if things came to the worst. As I was on my way down to the palace again the rumour spread that the enemy was retreating, whereupon some soldiers ascended the watch tower to enjoy the sight. I asked them when they returned if the good news were true that the enemy was really flying, and one of them answered me roughly that they who were flying were not the enemy but those who still stay in Lisbon. To which I answered him not a word but God be with ye."
But by terrorism, energy, and promptness the Archduke at length got the city into a state for defence both against the enemy from without and the probable enemy within. The city water-tanks were locked and the supply brought from outside, so as to save the precious liquid for the coming siege. The resident Spaniards formed themselves into a bodyguard of 150 men, "very smart and well armed," and, as in duty bound, the Germans and Flemings offered two hundred harquebussiers in good order, whilst many Portuguese "fidalgos" slept in the corridors of the palace to protect the Archduke in the hour of need. Four colonels were appointed to organise bands of the inhabitants for the defence of the city, and Matias de Alburquerque, a famous sea-captain, took charge of the twelve war galleys in the Tagus and armed thirty merchant ships which were lying in the harbour. The defensive works round the city were divided into sections and apportioned to the command of officers of tried fidelity, whose names need not be recorded here, the river front being mainly entrusted to Portuguese, who evidently considered theirs the post of danger, as they had not the walls to protect them along the quay side. The Castilians, however, made no secret of the fact that they were placed there as no attack was expected from the river. The parts most strongly guarded, almost entirely by Spaniards, were the quarters of St. Catalina, San Antonio, and San Roque, facing the north and west, from which quarters the English were expected to approach.
The English army, by all accounts twelve thousand strong, marched out of Peniche on the 17th of May, with the Earl of Essex and Sir Roger Williams leading; and Drake, accompanying them to the top of a hill at some distance off, greeted each regiment as it passed him with kindly words, and hopes of success, which he could hardly have anticipated.
Soon the English soldiery began to show their true metal. Strict orders had been given that the property and persons of Dom Antonio's faithful subjects were to be respected; but as soon as they got clear of Peniche housebreaking and pillage became rife, and Norris had to order his provost-marshal, Crisp, to hang a few of the malefactors before he could obtain obedience.
The Archduke had sent three squadrons of Spanish horsemen to reinforce Pedro de Guzman at Torres Vedras, block the road to Lisbon, and harass the English. They went out to reconnoitre the enemy at various points after he left Peniche, but they did not like the look of him, and fell back again to Torres Vedras, whilst messengers were hourly sent to the Archduke begging for more men, whom he could not send. At first it was rumoured amongst the English that a stand would be made at a village near Peniche, but when they arrived there the last Spanish horsemen were just scampering out of it. The next day it was said that certainly a great stand would be made at Torres Vedras, and this undoubtedly was the Archduke's intention; but even the almost impregnable Torres Vedras was untenable with a few hundred horse and a body of militia, who, if they fought at all, would fight on the other side; and the Spanish forces, for fear of being cut off from their base, hastily evacuated Torres Vedras and fell back gradually, harassing the flanks of the enemy as much as they could and cutting off stragglers.
And so the main body of Morris' force, with the Earl of Essex and Sir Roger Williams always leading, moved rapidly and peacefully towards Lisbon, whilst the panic in the capital grew greater as the English came nearer. Peaceably—but hungry—for the land was bare, and the English, we are told, "found our food dry and tasteless and hankered after their own fat meats and birds, comparing our barrenness with the abundance of their own land." There was little or no money in the host, and nothing was to be taken from the Portuguese without payment. There was in any case very little to take, for most of the people along the road had fled or had been stripped clean by the Castilian soldiers who had gone before. Drake's predictions of trouble in moving an army without a baggage train began to come true, and at last starvation was breeding open mutiny in the English host. Norris was then obliged to tell Antonio that unless food were forthcoming more plentifully the soldiers must be allowed to shift for themselves. The poor pretender could only beseech his controller, Campello, to scour the country far and wide for delicacies for the English, "who are naturally dainty and exquisite in their food"; but he could only pay in promises, and the land was bare, so the invaders still marched a hungry host towards the larders of Lisbon.
From day to day they were told that the Spaniards would certainly stand and fight to-morrow, but they were continually disappointed, as indeed was the stout-hearted Archduke in his palace, who received with dismay the constant news that his forces were falling further and further back towards the capital without fighting.
Whatever country people had remained on the road welcomed the invaders with cries of "Viva el Rei Dom Antonio!" but the poor King still looked in vain for the promised gentlemen. His desire to please his rustic adherents was almost pathetic. He condescended, we are told, to caress and embrace the "commonest little people"; and in order to make as brave a show as possible before the English, picked out any countryman who was decently fair-spoken to be paraded before them as some grand gentleman in disguise. But however hopeful he might show himself, he could not conceal the fact that not a dozen men-at-arms had joined him, and his only chance now was that Lisbon itself should declare in his favour. But the native citizens were distracted and divided. The judges and magistrates had abandoned their posts, the shopkeepers had deserted their stores, incendiary fires and pillage were of hourly occurrence, and the Archduke alone kept his head. Even he was not free from danger of attack, for more than one attempt was made to assassinate some of his chief officers.
On one occasion a large number of men were caught deserting their posts and escaping in a boat to the other side of the Tagus. When they were brought to the Archduke for punishment he said if they were too cowardly to fight in defence of their God and their fatherland they were useless to him and could go. This he knew, that even the Castilian women would mount the walls and fight with stones, if need be, in such a cause. Albert required all his firmness and nerve, for one sign of weakness from him and his handful of Spaniards, would have given heart to the craven Portuguese within and without the walls, who were thirsting for their blood.
Three-quarters of the Portuguese in Lisbon had fled or were in hiding, and the rest were in Spanish pay or watched day and night by jealous eyes. But watched as they were, and few in numbers, their hopes were still high, and amongst themselves their speech grew bolder. They got news daily from English prisoners and others of the approach of their king, and plotted together how they would serve the hated Castilians when the English deliverers came.
The rumour ran that the city would be surrendered to the invader on Corpus Christi day, and not a Spaniard was to be left alive, and much more to the same effect. But, alas! on one occasion when a few English prisoners were being brought in a panic-cry arose that the invaders had entered the city, and then each man fled to hiding to save his own skin rather than to his post, and the few Spanish guards that remained had to drag them out of cellars and lofts by main force, kicking and cuffing them for a set of cowards for not helping the defenders. The Count de Fuentes, once on a false alarm, was sent out of the city with every man who could be spared to Orlas, three leagues off on the road to Cascaes, where it was expected the enemy would pass; but the English went by Torres Vedras, and Fuentes had to hurry back into Lisbon again the same day, to avoid being cut off and the gates being shut against him.
On the 19th of May Norris and his troops marched into Torres Vedras, where Dom Antonio was received with regal honours, and the oath of allegiance taken to him. He was desirous of making a detour to Santarem, through, as he said, a rich country favourable to him, but Norris knew the danger of delay, and insisted upon pushing forward to Lisbon.
Guzman and his Spanish horsemen had fallen back during the previous night to Jara, nearer Lisbon, but he had left Captain Alarcon, with two companies of horse, to hang on the skirts of the enemy. The next day Captain Yorke, who commanded Norris' cavalry, determined to try their metal, and sent a corporal with eight men who rode through forty of the enemy, whilst Yorke himself, with forty English horse, put to precipitous flight Alarcon's two hundred. On the following day, May 21st, the English, disappointed again of a fight, were lodged in the village of Louvres, not far from Lisbon, which Guzman had hurriedly evacuated after being very nearly surprised by Norris. The village was small and the accommodation poor, so Drake's regiment, thinking to better their quarters, went to sleep at a little hamlet a mile off. In the early dawn a cry was raised of "Viva el Rei Dom Antonio!" which was the usual friendly salutation of the country folk. The young English sentries fraternised with those who approached, and admitted them into the sleeping-camp. It was an ambuscade, and many of the English were slain, but the enemy was finally driven off by two companies of Englishmen who were lodged near. The next day, at a village near Lisbon, a large number were treacherously poisoned by the bad water from a well, or, as some said, by the honey which they found in the houses. This was three miles from Lisbon, at a place called Alvelade, and at eleven o'clock at night Essex left the camp with Sir Roger Williams and 1,000 men to lie in ambuscade near the town. When they had approached almost to the walls a few of them began banging at the gates and otherwise trying to alarm those within and provoke a sally. But the device was too transparent, and a few men shot and a sleepless night were the only result. When the English had arrived at Alvelade, Count de Fuentes, with the main body of Spaniards, was at Alcantara, a mile or so nearer Lisbon. Thither Albert hastily summoned a council of war, and urged his officers at last to make a stand at once before the English could co-operate with their friends within the walls of Lisbon. Fuentes and the other Spanish commanders were of the same opinion, but the Portuguese Colonel, Fernando de Castro, made a speech pointing out that the English were short of stores, cut off from their base, and weakened by sickness and short commons. "Let us," he said, "fall back into the city and conquer them by hunger and delay. Behind our walls they will be powerless to injure us, whilst we can draw abundant supplies from across the river, and they cannot blockade us even by land with less than 40,000 men." This exactly suited the other Portuguese, who were never comfortable unless they had a good thick wall between themselves and their enemies. The opinion of the Spaniards was overborne, and the defending force entered the gates of Lisbon on Corpus Christi day, midst the ringing of bells and the more or less sincere rejoicing of the populace. Lisbon feasted and welcomed its defenders, whilst poor Dom Antonio, we are told, at Alvelade just outside, had not a fowl or even a loaf of rye bread to eat. "You may guess how he is hated by the Portuguese," says my Portuguese diarist, "that he being so near his native Lisbon not even a costermonger or a down dared to send him a meal, whilst we in the city had plenty."
Most of the houses adjoining the walls had been blown up, but the monastery of the Trinidade, down the hill towards the river, still remained. The prior was understood to be in favour of Dom Antonio, as were nearly all churchmen, and Ruy Diaz de Lobo, one of the few nobles with Dom Antonio, undertook to negotiate with him to admit the English to the city through the monastery garden. By the aid of two sympathetic monks he obtained access to the prior. But the latter had been gained over by the Spaniards, and a few hours afterwards the pale heads of Ruy Diaz de Lobo and the two monks were grinning with half-closed, lustreless eyes from the top of three poles on the great quay, whilst Sir Roger Williams and his men, when they approached the monastery in expectation of a friendly reception, were received with a shower of harquebuss balls, and fell back. The rest of the day, now that the main body of English had come up, was spent in quartering the men in the suburbs of the city, entrenched camps being formed, protected by breastworks of wine-pipes filled with earth. Tired with their six days' march and their labour in the trenches, Norris' little army were glad to pass their first night before Lisbon in such peace as the besieged would allow them.
If the enterprise was ever to succeed this was the moment. The English were more numerous as regards men bearing arms, but they had come upon their wild-goose chase against a fortified city without any battering artillery or proper appliances for a siege, whilst the Spaniards were behind strong walls, with unlimited sources of supply from the river front across the Tagus. Norris, on the other hand, was short of supplies, with fifteen miles of defensible country between him and Cascaes, the point where the fleet was to await him. The advantage, therefore, was clearly on the side of the besieged, but for the one element of the disaffection of Lisbon itself from within, and in this lay Dom Antonio's last chance. A letter written by Don Francisco Odonte, adjutant-general in Lisbon, on the day following the arrival of the English forces before the walls, gives a vivid description of the state of affairs there at the time.[26]
"Dom Antonio," he says, "spent the night in the house of the Duke d'Aveiro, and then early in the morning completed the investment of the city and continued his search for some secret gate by which he might enter. But the garrison harassed him as much as they could. Don Sancho Bravo and Captain Alarcon have been skirmishing all day outside the city, and have sent in 25 or 30 English prisoners who have been consigned to the galleys; and if they could only do the same by all those who are really fighting us, whilst feigning to be our friends, they might man more galleys than are to be found in all Christendom this day, for those who have shown their colours during the last three days, and that without a blush, are simply infinite, nor is there any wonder that Dom Antonio has attempted this enterprise, owing to the promises held out to him; for from the moment he disembarked, he has been supplied with abundance of provisions,[27] whilst not a man has offered us his services. All the aldermen of the city are against us but two, the rest are all in hiding, and some even have supplied Dom Antonio's troops, with as little shamefacedness as if they had come from England with him. In this quarter of the city there is not a man left. Some have fled across the river, some are hidden, some have joined Dom Antonio. The troops under the four colonels publicly declare they will not fight. Dom Antonio was certain the moment he appeared the city would rise, and on this account we are in great alarm and have passed a very bad night. God help us!"
But the English did not sleep tranquilly either. In the first hours of the morning of the 25th of May Don Garcia Bravo, with 500 Spanish troops from Oporto, arrived in Lisbon. They were hungry, ragged, and weary, but they were eager to meet the foe, and barely gave themselves time to snatch a hurried meal before sallying from the gate of San Anton and up the hill to the quarters of Colonel Brett in the farm of Andres Soares. Another force at the same time came from the gate of Santa Catalina and forced Brett's trenches from that side. The long rows of windows of the monastery of San Roque on the hill were lined by Spanish musketeers, who kept up a deadly fire on the English, whilst two of the great guns of the castle were brought to bear upon one exposed side of the invaders' camp. The attack was made before dawn, and Brett had hardly time to muster his men in the darkness and confusion, when a cannon-shot from the walls laid him low. Captain Carsey and Captain Carr were mortally wounded, and 200 other officers and men slain. The rest of the English forces were aroused, and came to the rescue under Colonel Lane and Colonel Medkirk, and "put them to a sodain fowle retreate, insomuch as the Earle of Essex had the chase of them even to the gates of the High towne, wherein they left behind them many of their best commanders." A body of Spanish horse, sallying from the gates of San Anton to support their comrades, met the latter in full retreat in a narrow lane, and unwillingly trampled them down; thus adding to the confusion, which was completed by a flank charge upon the struggling mass by Yorke's cavalry. The English chronicler claims that the Spanish loss tripled ours, but my diarists say that they had only twenty-five killed and forty wounded, and the Portuguese tries to account for the heavy loss of wounded by accusing the English of using poisoned bullets. The next day the English tried to get in through the monastery, but they found the city forewarned and on the alert, although the monks had done their best for them. The day after they bribed a Portuguese captain in charge of the wall at the nearest point to the river to let them pass round at low tide, but the spies told the Archduke, and the English found their ally replaced by a Spaniard with a strong force, who sent them flying back again. And so three days passed in constant skirmishes, whilst Norris was chafing and helpless without. The fatal mistake he had made in leaving the fleet was now apparent. The time, too, they had lost at Corunna was irreparable. Fernando de Toledo was approaching with relief, and the first dismay in Spain had now given way to desperate energy. The loss of men in the English camp from sickness and wounds was terrible, supplies and munitions were desperately short, there was no medical aid or transport for the sick and disabled, whilst the Portuguese in Lisbon, from whom everything had been hoped, still made no sign.
Dom Antonio still put a brave face on the matter, but his heart was sinking. For the first two days he had lodged in the rear of the English camp, outside Santa Catalina, but on the third, says my Portuguese diarist, he began to fear for his safety, and, wearied of low fare and the sound of musketry, sought refuge in the house of a Portuguese gentleman on the road to Cascaes. But he was repulsed and barely escaped capture, and thereafter could but cling desperately to the English force. In vain he looked now for the general rising in his favour, for the promised nobles who never came, and hour by hour the prospect darkened. The Earl of Essex, young, inexperienced, hot-headed, was for assaulting all sorts of impossible places with pike and musket, but Norris knew better, and sadly acknowledged to himself that the expedition had failed.
Drake, with the fleet, had in the meanwhile reached Cascaes with everything he could lay hands on in the form of prizes. He had cast anchor on the very day twelvemonth that the great Armada had first sailed out of Lisbon, and the townspeople of the capital were full of portents which they saw in this coincidence. Every one in Lisbon by this time feared that he would sail up the river and enter the harbour; and such was the dread of his name that if he had done so he might have turned the tide of victory. But his advice had been rejected, and he would not venture under the guns of the forts with an under-manned fleet and no soldiers. So he remained at Cascaes and left Norris to get out of the hobble as best he could. When he arrived he found the town almost abandoned, for the citizens had fled in terror at his very name. My Portuguese says that Cardenas, the commander of the fortress, "a great gentleman," was deceived by a monk (or, as he says, the devil in disguise of one) into the belief that Lisbon had fallen, and he accordingly gave up the fortress, and himself took to flight. The Castilian and the Englishman tell the story somewhat differently, and say that Cardenas was an adherent of Dom Antonio, and stipulated that a show of compulsion should be used before he surrendered the fortress. The result in any case was the same to him, for the "great gentleman's" head soon afterwards adorned one of the Archduke's poles on the quay at Lisbon.
Drake had therefore established himself without difficulty at Cascaes, and patiently awaited the result of the land attack on Lisbon.
If the English outside the walls of the capital were in a bad way, the small force of steadfast Spaniards inside were not much better. They knew that the Portuguese citizens around them were hourly watching for an opportunity to cut their throats and let in the native pretender. Panics of treason and treachery were of hourly occurrence, and on several occasions only the coolness of the Cardinal-Archduke averted disaster. Every day men of the best blood of Portugal, often taken from the immediate surrounding of the Archduke, were seized for assumed treason, the policy being to deprive the disaffected populace of native leaders. To further terrorise the citizens, and prevent them from plucking up heart to open the gates, a great review of all the Spanish troops was held in an open space where the enemy could see as well as the wavering townfolk. My Spanish diarist says, "With the sun flashing on shining morions and the brave show of arms and men all were convinced, friends and enemies alike that the success of our cause was certain."
Boldness and firmness won the day. The next morning Norris called his colonels together to seek their advice and consult with Dom Antonio. He said that as the besieged stood firm and the populace made no move, the English force must have artillery and munitions if they were to succeed, and asked their opinion as to whether he should wait for Dom Antonio's forces, which came not, and meanwhile send a detachment to Cascaes for munitions, or raise the siege altogether. Many were for sending 3,000 men to Cascaes at once. They had given the enemy a good drubbing, they said, and they would sally no more; but Norris had lost hope in Portuguese promises, and was not quite so contemptuous of the enemy as some of them, and he decided that he would wait only one day more for Dom Antonio's levies. If 3,000 came in that night he would send a like number of English to Cascaes for the munitions, otherwise he would raise the siege and leave before daybreak. In vain Antonio prayed for a few days' longer grace. In nine days all Portugal would acclaim him. Lisbon was wavering already, and would turn the scale. But all his prayers were in vain; and before dawn the English army was mustered and ready for the march. Essex was disgusted at the turn things had taken, and went up to the principal gate (he and Williams being the last men to leave) and broke his lance against it, crying out that if there was any within who would come out and have a bout with him in honour of his mistress let him come, and he gave them all the lie to their teeth. And then he turned away and followed the army, no doubt much relieved in his mind.
During the day that Norris was awaiting the arrival of Dom Antonio's troops the English had not left their trenches, and the defenders feared that some deep design lay behind this. Were they mining, or was Drake sending up some heavy guns? they thought. So when the dawn of the 27th of May showed that the main body of the English was already on its way to Cascaes, Count de Fuentes still doubted whether it was not all a feint to draw him out from the shelter of his walls, and peremptorily refused permission to Count Villa Dorta to follow them up and engage them. The way of the retreating force lay along the shore, but to avoid the fire of the galleys which followed their movements they chose the rough by-paths where possible. And so, all undisciplined, sick, and starving, they wandered and struggled on as best they could, four hundred at least of stragglers and sick being killed or captured by Villa Dorta, who hung upon the rear, notwithstanding his chief's prohibition. Later in the day Fuentes so far conquered his suspicion as to lead his army out to Viera, half-way to Cascaes, but he had barely sighted the enemy than some rumour or suspicion reached him of an intended rising in Lisbon during his absence, and he hurried back again to the city. My Portuguese diarist ridicules the suggestion of such a danger as unworthy of any sensible man; but the utter futility of the English and Portuguese proceedings from the first was such as well might excuse Fuentes for thinking that some deeper design must surely lay behind. The suspicion of the Portuguese on the part of the Spaniards at this time is illustrated by an anecdote given by the Portuguese diarist. Alvaro Souza, the captain of Philip's Portuguese guard, with five companions, accompanied Sancho Bravo, who took out a force to harry the English on their way to Cascaes. Souza straggled and was captured by Spanish soldiers, who did not know him. They were near the castle of São Gian at the mouth of Lisbon harbour and knowing that Pero Venegas, the commandant, was a friend of his father, Souza sent a messenger to him begging him to answer for his loyalty. Venegas declined to reply, and Souza was lead off under arrest. On the way he met the famous Alvaro de Bazan going to his galleys. He was a friend, and Souza appealed to him to stand by him and his companions, "but he answered coldly that he knew him not, nor was this a time to recognise any one." He had, he said, recently answered for some Portuguese fidalgos in the palace, and a few hours afterwards they were arrested for treason.
Fifteen weary miles over rough ground, and with Villa Dorta's troops harassing their flank and rear, the English managed to cover during the day, and at last, late in the evening, they marched into Cascaes.[28] We may well imagine that the meeting between Drake and Norris was not very cordial. The officers threw the whole blame for failure upon Drake for not coming up the river to support them before Lisbon; the sailors, on the other hand, saying that the march overland was against Drake's advice, and that his ships, without men-at-arms to defend them and work the guns, would have been at the mercy of the enemy. At all events, it was clear they had failed in two of the objects of the voyage—namely, to burn the King of Spain's ships and restore Dom Antonio; and one other only remained to be attempted, which was to take the Azores.
I have already said that the raising of the siege of Lisbon took the defenders by surprise. They fully believed it to be an attempt to draw the Spanish troops out of the town in order that the citizens might rise and massacre the few Spaniards left. So certain were they of this that an unfortunate Portuguese noble—Count Redondo—who arrived that day and went to pay his respects to the Archduke, was immediately seized and beheaded pour encourager les autres. As soon as they saw the English had really gone, Count de Fuentes with his six or seven thousand men again made a reconnaissance almost to the English position at Cascaes, and finding the invaders well entrenched, with the fleet behind them, decided that it would be too risky to attack them, and hastened back again to Lisbon. News of the nearness of the Spaniards was brought in by some friars, of whom great numbers hung about Dom Antonio's quarters, and Norris and Essex each promised the messengers a hundred crowns if they found the enemy in the place reported, as they were spoiling for a fight in the open before embarking. But Fuentes had gone to Lisbon, and the friars lost their reward. Norris, however, still eager, sent a page who spoke French, and a trumpeter, post-haste to Lisbon, with a challenge to Fuentes and his army to come into the open and fight. The opportunity was too good for Essex to miss, so he too sent a cartel by the page on his own account, giving every one the lie in a general way and offering to fight anybody in single combat. The messenger came back again without an answer, only that the Spaniards had threatened to hang him for bringing such vapouring insolence to them; but the Spaniard tells the story in another way, less honourably for himself. He says, whilst the messengers were being entertained "as if they were great gentlemen" at breakfast by some of the captains who spoke French, the letters (which they had said could only be opened by the Archduke's permission) were surreptitiously steamed, read, and re-sealed, and handed back again as if unopened, with the reply that his Highness would not allow them to be opened. So Norris and Essex had their bravado for nothing, and went without their fight.
In Lisbon the common people were as disturbed as ever, doubtless feeling that their chance of freedom was slipping away from them, and alarms were constantly raised that the English were returning. But Spanish reinforcements were arriving now. The Duke of Braganza, head of the Portuguese nobility, arrived in royal state with a great body of retainers to help the Archduke, and all hope for Dom Antonio gradually ebbed away.
The English commanders in Cascaes began now to think it high time to put themselves right with the angry Queen, who continued to send furious messages about their disobedience and about Essex and Sir Roger Williams. On the 2nd of June they wrote from Cascaes a full account of all that had happened in the best light they could devise, and saying they knew not what to do unless supplies came at once from England. Everybody was terribly seasick, they said, and well-nigh starving. Seeing that no more provisions could be expected, they wrote, on the 5th of June, that they had decided to go to St. Michaels; and then, for the first time, they confessed that Essex was with them. They had met him, they said, to their great surprise, off Cape Finisterra, but could not send him home before, as they could not spare the Swiftsure; but still no word about Sir Roger Williams.[29]
If Drake could not or would not burn the Spanish fleet on this occasion, he was always a splendid hand at plundering merchantmen, and during the six days that his fleet lay before Cascaes he scoured the sea for miles round in search of prizes, taking as many as forty German hulks loaded with Spanish merchandise. Into these prizes the men from the Dutch flyboats were transhipped, and the Dutch captains sent off without being paid their freights, glad, no doubt, to get away from such company on any terms.
In the meanwhile Lisbon was gradually settling down. People who had been hiding in churches and cellars for the last ten days crept out, nearly all under the impression that the Spaniards had all been murdered, and that King Antonio had come to his own again. Dire was their disappointment when they found that they were not the only people who had skulked in hiding, and that none of all the city had dared to strike the blow that would have made Portugal free again. So they patiently bent their neck to the yoke and cheered his Highness the Archduke at the top of their voices as he went in state to the cathedral to hear a solemn Te Deum of victory.
The Spaniards did their best to follow up the enemy. The ships in the Tagus were fitted out to watch Cascaes and follow the English fleet, doing all the damage they could, and Don Pedro de Guzman was sent to cut off the English garrison left at Peniche. They urged the horses, says the Spanish diarist, until they were ready to drop, but arrived too late to stop the embarkation, except of about 200 men, who were put to death.
On the 8th of June the English fleet set sail, pursued and harassed by the galleys from Lisbon in nearly a dead calm. Three of our ships were taken or sunk and one burned, by her captain, Minshaw, after a desperate resistance. A wind sprang up, however, and the Spanish galleys were left behind; but soon the fleet got scattered, the men died, and were thrown overboard by the hundred from scurvy, starvation, and wounds; but, notwithstanding all, after sailing ostensibly for the Azores, Drake turned back again and, picking up twenty-five of his ships which had been separated from him, sailed up the bay and attacked Vigo. He had only 2,000 men fit to fight: sickness and privation had thinned them down to that, but with those few men, finding Vigo deserted, the English burnt and wasted the town and all the villages around. "A verie pleasant rich valley but wee burnt it all, houses and corne, so as the countrey was spoyled seven or eight miles in length." Then they decided to drop down to the isle of Bayona, and there put the pick of the men and stores on twenty of the best ships for Drake to take to the Azores, whilst the rest returned to England. But for some reason Drake broke the agreement and passed Bayona without even calling, and the thirty ships that were awaiting him there were left to their fate. Beset with tempest and pestilence, without a commander, it was decided by those on board to make the best of their way to England, in terrible distress as they were for provisions and water. After ten days' voyage they arrived at Plymouth on the 2nd of July, and found that Drake had already arrived there with the Queen's ships, having abandoned his voyage to the Azores. Most of the remaining ships had sought other ports in preference, in order to sell their prizes without having to share the proceeds with others.
Such of the soldiers as came to Plymouth were sent grumbling home with five shillings each for their wages and the arms they bore. The English chronicler thinks that this was "verie good pay, considering they were victualled all the time." Such, however, was not the opinion of the unfortunate men themselves, who had not been allowed to loot as much as they thought fit in Portugal. They said that if they had been permitted to march as through an enemy's country, they would have come back the richest army that ever returned to England. Not more than 5,000 of them ever came home; but their story was so dismal a one that all England rang with reprobation of the bad management and parsimony that had brought the expedition to so inglorious a conclusion.
The first and third objects of the expedition—namely, the burning of the Spanish fleet and the capture of St. Michaels—were never even attempted, but the second object was very nearly being attained, and the restoration of Dom Antonio, practically as a vassal of England, might have been effected a dozen times over if the Portuguese in Lisbon had not been an utterly terrified set of poltroons. On various occasions, when Count de Fuentes and his troops were outside, a few dozen daring men might have seized the gates and have turned the tide in Antonio's favour. It was not to be, however, and the poor King wandered a poverty-stricken fugitive yet for a few years before he died, but his desperate struggle for sovereignty ended with the ignominious failure of the English attempt to avenge a great national injury by a joint-stock enterprise.
[1] For the sake of uniformity, throughout this narrative the dates are given in the "old style," then used in England, ten days earlier than the dates cited by the Spanish and Portuguese authorities.
[2] Venetian Calendar of State Papers.
[3] Ibid.
[4] In a subscription reprint of sixty copies of this tract published in 1881 under the editorship of the Rev. Alexander Grosart, the authorship appears to be ascribed, I know not on what grounds, to a certain Robert Pricket who served probably as a gentleman volunteer and follower of the Earl of Essex. He had seen previous service in the Netherlands, and was the author of several poetical works, one being a panegyric on the Earl of Essex. The tract is entitled "A True Coppie of a Discourse, written by a gentleman employed in the late voiage of Spaine and Portingale. Sent to his particular friend and by him published for the better satisfaction of all such as having been seduced by particular report have entered into conceipts tending to the discredit of the enterprise and Actors of the same. At London. Printed for Thomas Woodcock, dwelling in Paules Churchyard, at the sign of the blacke Beare 1589."
[5] It is called "Relacion de lo subcedido del armada enemiga del reyno de Inglaterra a este de Portugal con la retirada a su tierra, este año de 1589." MS. Gayangos Library. Transcript in possession of the author.
[6] "Memoria do successo da vinda dos Ingreses ao reino de Portugal." Biblioteca National, Lisbon. Pombalina, 196, fol. 271. Transcribed by the author.
[7] Mendoza, writing to Philip from London, August 8, 1582, gives one instance of this amongst several. He says: "The Queen lent Dom Antonio £3,000 when he was here, and I understand she peremptorily demands payment of the sum, taking possession of the diamond which was pledged here for a sum of £5,000 lent by merchants, who offer to relinquish their claim to the Queen, if she will lend them £30,000 free of interest for six years out of the bars brought by Drake, which they will repay in five yearly instalments of £6,000 each. So far as I can learn, this talk of the loan is a mere fiction and a cloak under which the Queen may keep the diamond for the £8,000 on the ground that the merchants advanced the £5,000 by her express order, without which they would not have done so. This plan was invented by Cecil in order to prevent Dom Antonio from getting his diamond back again."
This diamond is probably identical with the celebrated stone given by Charles I. when Prince of Wales to the Count-Duke of Olivares, favourite of Philip IV., when Charles and Buckingham went on their foolish visit to Madrid. A contemporary account (Soto's MS. in the Academy of History, Madrid) describes the diamond as being of the purest water, weighing eight carats and called "the Portuguese," from its having been one of the crown jewels of Portugal. It had a great pearl pendent from it.
[8] See Calendar of Spanish State Papers of Elizabeth, vol. 3, for particulars of them.
[9] The first of these, in 1582, commanded by Strozzi, consisted of 55 ships and 5,000 men. Terceira, which was held for Dom Antonio, welcomed it at once, and in the midst of the rejoicings to celebrate the event the Spanish fleet under Santa Cruz appeared and scattered the French like chaff, Strozzi being killed, Antonio barely escaping, and the fleet almost entirely destroyed. The second expedition in the following year under Aymar de Chastes with 6,000 men was, curiously enough, beaten by Santa Cruz in the same place and under exactly similar circumstances ("Un pretendant portugais du xvi. siècle").
[10] It is a curious co-incidence that this gem was long afterwards carried away from England by another fugitive King, James II., who sold it, as Antonio had done, to provide for his needs. It had formerly belonged to Charles the Bold of Burgundy, the great-grandfather of Philip II.
[11] After the return of the expedition Lopez writes (July 12, 1589) to Walsingham, deeply regretting that the Queen had been induced by his advice to spend so much money to no purpose, and hinting that he had intimated to Dom Antonio that he and his Portuguese were not wanted in England. On the same day he himself craves for help in his need and again asks for a thirty years' monopoly of the import of aniseed and sumach into England. He was executed in 1592, and was in high favour almost up to the day of his arrest. In the Mendoza Papers in the National Archives in Paris, to which I have had access, are documents proving that he made a regular trade of poisoning—or attempting to poison, as he does not seem to have been very successful in the cases recorded.
[12] It is certain from letters of Dom Antonio's friends in London, now in the Archives Nationales (K 1567), that it was not until the end of December that Antonio was confident that the fleet was really intended to aid him.
[13] There is a rough memorandum in Burleigh's writing, September 20, 1588, in the Record Office, setting down the details of the proposed expedition, in which he mentions that four thousand men are to be sent for from Holland, as well as two thousand horsemen volunteers. At the foot of the memorandum Burleigh sets down the "Articles of offers from King Antonio.
"1. To attempt to burn ye shippes in Lysbon and Civill."
"2. To tak Lysbon."
"3. To tak the Hands."
[14] Calendar of State Papers (Domestic). Record Office.
[15] Norris had greatly distinguished himself in Ireland and the Netherlands, notwithstanding Leicester's persistent attempts to ruin him; and, from his conduct there and during this expedition, he would appear to have been brave, but turbulent and of doubtful discretion.
[16] Philip was informed late in December by his spies in England that Drake was to contribute 12,000 crowns, the Earl of Essex 10,000, Norris 8,000, and London Merchants 24,000, and that the Queen had advanced £20,000.
[17] On the eve of departure Norris and Drake officially told the Council that the total number of all sorts was 23,375. Captain Fenner, Drake's vice-admiral, gives the number as 21,000 (Bacon Papers). Captain Baillie, of the Mary German, in a letter to Lord Shrewsbury says the landsmen alone were 20,000; whilst Drake himself, in one of his many letters begging for supplies, says, "20,000 men cannot be kept for a trifle."
Camden, the historian, speaks of 12,500 soldiers, and Speed, following Pricket's tract, puts the number of landsmen at 11,000 and mariners at 2,500. There is a letter in the British Museum from one of the Portuguese nobles (Count de Portalegre) to Philip II., in which the army before Lisbon is spoken of as 12,000 men; and the Spanish diarist whose MS. I have mentioned says 16,000 men-at-arms left England and very few sailors. The terrible mortality from sickness, &c., and the comparatively small number that came back made English writers of the time anxious to minimise the disaster by underrating the numbers of the expedition.
[18] English accounts usually say six, but I am inclined to believe the Spanish account is correct, as Drake writes to the Council (Record Office, Domestic Calendar), after the six ships had been appointed, asking for a larger vessel, the Victory, "in respect of the King Dom Antonio."
[19] Venetian Calendar.
[20] The Venetian ambassador at Madrid, in his account to the Doge of the events at Corunna, says that Drake's booty from that place consisted of "6,000 salted oxen, fifteen thousand jars of biscuit, 6,000 barrels of powder and 3,000 hogsheads of wine; all of it provision for the Armada which went so unsuccessfully last year, or else to furnish a new Armada according to the design which they entertain. This plunder will prove of the greatest service to the English ... and here the news has caused much chagrin; and it is hidden or minimised as much as possible."
[21] It was said in Madrid that these two thousand peasants had only six muskets amongst them.—Venetian Calendar of State Papers.
[22] "She dowteth not but they have thoroughly weighed the heinousness of the offence lately committed by Sir Roger Williams in forsaking the army with one of her principal ships. If they have not already inflicted punishment of death upon him he is to be deprived of all command and kept in safe custody at their perils. If the Earl of Essex has joined the fleet they are to send him home instantly. If they do not they shall truly answer for the same at their smart, for as we have authority to rule so we look to be obeyed and these be no childish actions."—State Papers (Domestic), May 4, 1589.
The draft of this letter, deeply scored by the Queen's own hand, was submitted to Walsingham by Windebanke, the Secretary of the Signet, and the minister said that although the letter was as mild as could be expected "under the circumstances," he much feared that any proceedings against one so beloved as Sir Roger Williams would breed mutiny. And so apparently thought the generals, for they took no notice of the Queen's commands.
The Queen wrote another outspoken letter to the generals on the 20th of May, in which she says they were perverting the object of their expedition; which was to burn the King of Spain's navy and restore Dom Antonio, and then proceed to the Azores. Corunna, she says, is of little importance and the risk great, and she commands them to fulfil her orders at once. Do not, she says, suffer yourselves to be transported with an haviour of vainglory which will obfuscate the eyes of your judgment.
Secretary Windebanke, writing to Heneage at the same time, says the Queen is strangely set against the expedition, and is intensely incensed at the fruitless attack on Corunna. "She thinks they went to places for their own profit rather than for her service."—State Papers (Domestic).
[23] The bitter jest in Madrid at the time was that, whereas with the Armada the year before there went an army with no commander, there was now a commander with no army.
[24] Contarini to the Doge. Venetian Calendar of State Papers.
[25] A letter in the collection of the Marquis of Salisbury at Hatfield curiously illustrates the not altogether happy relations that existed between the English invaders and the pretender's friends. The letter is dated the 27th of May, and is from General Norris to Captain George (Burton?), whom he had left in charge at Peniche, complaining that "the King is aggrieved that you do take upon you to give the word since he hath appointed a Governor. And in truth it is not reason but the Governor should have the pre-eminence and therefore henceforward fail not to let him have that honour." This is a sample of the frequent complaints that the English did not treat Antonio quite as a king expected to be treated in his own realm. The fact was that Antonio had been too long a suppliant and a fugitive dependent largely upon Elizabeth's caprices for the English to regard him otherwise than as a tool for their own ends.
[26] Venetian Calendar of State Papers.
[27] This is more likely to be true than the assertion of my Portuguese that Antonio could get nothing to eat. The great body of the people were unquestionably in his favour, but had no leaders and would not fight.
[28] If the Earl of Essex was rash and headstrong, he was also chivalrous. Pricket (or Wingfield) says: "Hee for money hired men to carrie sick and hurt upon pikes (for want of waggons) and hee (whose true virtue and nobilitie, as it dooth in all other his actions appear so did it very much in this) threw his owne stuffe, I mean apparell and necessaries from his owne carriages, and let them be left by the way, to put hurt and sick men upon them in this march."
[29] Essex started for England on the 16th of June, two days after his brother, on receipt of letters direct from the Queen, brought by a ship with stores from England. Williams was very desirous of accompanying him, but the generals refused to let him go, as they doubtless wished him to have the benefit of the favourite's mollifying influence with the Queen for some weeks before he arrived in England.
JULIAN ROMERO—SWASHBUCKLER.
In a slumberous street in old Madrid, called anciently the Calle de Cantaranas, but now inappropriately named after Lope de Vega, there stands a venerable convent of barefooted Trinitarian nuns. The fortress-like red walls with the tiny grated windows looking upon the street, the quaint, sad tranquillity which hangs around the place, are only such as mark hundreds of other like retreats in Madrid and elsewhere; and yet to this particular convent many reverent steps are bent from all quarters of the earth, for here lie the bones of the "maimed one of Lepanto," the author of "Don Quixote." He died only a few yards away, in his house in the Calle de Leon, and was quietly laid to rest in the convent, where one of his own daughters was a nun. The very fact of his burial there was almost forgotten—was indeed for many years disputed, until proved beyond possibility of doubt not long since—and when the fury for destroying religious foundations seized the rulers of Madrid after the revolution of 1868, the convent was marked down for destruction like so many others of its kind. And destroyed it would have been but for the pious zeal of the good "setenton," Mesonero Romanos, most beloved of Madrid antiquarians, who woke up the Academy of History, and brought such pressure to bear upon the Government as to save the sepulchre of Cervantes from profanation for all future time, and thus enabled the great author, after he had lain in his grave for two and a half centuries, to repay his debt to the Trinitarian fathers who rescued him from his galling slavery in the hands of the infidel. A stone tablet is now fixed in the wall of the convent setting forth the fact of his sepulture there in 1616, and the foundation of the community a few years previously by Doña Juana Gaitan, daughter of General Julian Romero. The name of the latter awakens no responsive echoes in Spanish minds. I have before me, indeed, a recently published Spanish historical work which ascribes his very existence to a wrong period. With the exception of a few particulars of his later life given in a local history of Cuenca by Father Muñoz, no Spanish writer has ever been at the trouble of tracing what little may be known of his stirring career. And yet the man in his day was the very prototype of those indomitable adventurers, lusting for blood and gold, who, the sword in one hand and the cross in the other, hunted down to death the Indians of one hemisphere and the "heretics" of the other. Keen, cruel, Alba had no more ruthless instrument for his fell work than "Captain Julian," upon whom and Sancho de Avila the hatred of the persecuted Flemings was mainly concentrated. In the course of my somewhat out-of-the-track studies I have found the name of Julian Romero constantly cropping up, and so many personal traits of him have appeared, that by carefully piecing them together a more complete account may be formed of the life and character of this typical swashbuckler than of, perhaps, any of his fellows. His life, too, offers some interest to Englishmen, for he swaggered and ruffled in London many a time and oft, and was one of those Spanish mercenaries who, in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., fought so bravely against the French and Scots and quelled by their ferocity the risings of Kett in Norfolk and Arundell in the West Country. Practically nothing whatever was known of the lives—hardly indeed the existence—of the Spanish mercenaries in England until the recent publication of the anonymous "Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII.,"[1] which I now attribute to Antonio de Guaras, a leading Spanish merchant in London, whom I know to have been on close terms of intimacy with the Spanish soldiers, and particularly with Julian Romero, whose early adventures in England are evidently related at first hand in the Chronicle.
Of all the turbulent soldiers of fortune who quarrelled, intrigued, and triumphed in England, and whose adventures are so minutely told in the Chronicle, only one was heard of in after life. The general, Sir Peter Gamboa, was murdered with Captain Sir Alonso de Villa Sirga in St. Sepulchre's churchyard, hard by Newgate, one wet winter's night in 1551, by Captain Guevara, who was incontinently hanged in Smithfield. Sir Pero Negro died of the sweating sickness in one of the crowded lanes of old London city. Juan de Haro was killed by the English for attempted desertion with his company to the French enemy before Boulogne; others fell in the Flemish wars, and only the rash and boastful "Captain Julian" lived to become Alba's trusted henchman, and to hand his name down to the execration of generations of Flemings as one of the prime movers of the "Spanish Fury" in Antwerp. So great was the fame of his ferocity that the panic mongers, who were for ever sending to Elizabeth and Cecil intelligence of the dreadful vengeance which was to fall upon England at the hands of King Philip, could invent nothing more terror-striking than their constantly repeated dread that Julian Romero was to swoop down upon the coast and serve English Protestants in the same way as he had treated those of the Netherlands. He had, indeed, as will be shown in his own words at various periods of his life—now for the first time brought together—all the vices and virtues of his class and time. Vain and boastful, bigoted and cruel, he was nevertheless true to his salt, faithful, brave, and steadfast; of that stern, self-sacrificing stuff by which alone empires may be won or despotism defended. He was born at Huelamo, in the province of Cuenca, of very humble folk, for even when he was in high command and on terms of close intimacy with nobles and ministers, he was never given the nobiliary address of Don, which was enjoyed by the most remote and out-at-elbows representative of the hidalgo class. He was not much of a scholar either, for his signature which exists at Simancas is the only part of his letters in his own hand, and is painfully traced in great bold straight lines, like a row of halberds.
In the winter of 1534 every village in Spain resounded with the drum-beat of the recruiters, who were seeking soldiers for the Emperor's great expedition against the Moors, which was to start from Barcelona in the spring. Spanish hearts were all aflame with wondrous stories of fortune and adventure. The excitement, the freedom, the idleness, and the possible gains of a soldier's life had seized upon the imagination of Spanish youth; and the turbulent spirit of war-like adventure in far countries was, for the next century at least, to be the dominant note of the national character. Julian must have been a mere boy, but he joined the standard, so he wrote forty years afterwards, at Christmas, 1534, as a foot-soldier, and, with a pike on his shoulder, started on his life of adventure. There was no one to record the doings and sufferings of the humble man-at-arms in those stirring days, and beyond the fact that he drifted from Spain to Tunis, from Tunis to Italy, and thence to Flanders and France, always in the midst of the fighting in the Emperor's wars, nothing is known for the next ten years of Julian Romero's service. In the beginning of 1544 Henry VIII. had arranged to enter into alliance with the Emperor to jointly attack the King of France, and the probability is that if they had together marched upon Paris promptly, they would have had France at their mercy. But other counsels prevailed, and, whilst Charles operated in Picardy and French Flanders, Henry sent the Duke of Norfolk and his brilliant son, Surrey, with an army of 15,000 men, to besiege Montreuil. The King's brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, at the same time with a large force "sat down before" Boulogne, and, on the 14th of July, great Harry himself landed at his good town of Calais to take the supreme command of his army before Boulogne. He was accompanied by a brilliant train of courtiers and soldiers, and took with him as his chief military adviser a great Spanish noble, Beltran de la Cueva, third Duke of Alburquerque, whose important share in the reduction of the town has been almost entirely ignored by English historians. Besides the 200 Spanish soldiers who followed the Duke, there were already three Spanish captains in Henry's service, each with a company of his countrymen, to the aggregate number of about 260 men, all of them seasoned veterans in the Continental wars; and these, together with the less experienced English levies, succeeded in capturing the town of Boulogne on the 15th of September. It appears that a breach had been made in the walls three weeks before, and the Spaniards begged Henry to let them take the place by assault. He told them that he would rather waste 10,000 pounds of powder than that a single one of his Spaniards should be sacrificed, "whereupon they blushed for mere shame." But as usual Henry had his own way, and the town surrendered; "the Frenchmen," says Wriothesley, "departing out of the towne with as much goodes as they might carye, both men and women, besyde that the waggons caryed; and the King his Majestie entered the said towne the 18th September with greate tryumphe, and the 20th day a solempne procession was kept with Te Deum songe for the Victory of the King his Majestie and many fyers made in the citye and in every part of the realme. The last day of September the King his Majestie landed at Dover at midnight." The reason for Henry's hurried return was his desire to retain all the credit for his victory without waiting for the probable reverse. Charles V. had come to terms with the French, and when he had sent word to his English ally that he was negotiating, Henry arrogantly said that the Emperor might make peace if he pleased, but he, Henry, would suit himself in the matter. But when he found the whole French army turned against him he hurriedly raised the siege of Montreuil, put all his forces into Boulogne under Lord Grey, and got back to England as fast as he could, whilst his laurels were yet green. All through the next year the French siege of Boulogne went on, the three companies of Spanish mercenaries, steady old soldiers as they were, being the mainstay of the defence. They complained bitterly of the raw Englishmen's habit of killing the prisoners instead of holding them to ransom, and on one occasion were near mutiny because their prisoners were murdered. "How now," said Captain Salablanca to Lord Grey, "do you think we are in the King's service for the wretched four ducats a month we earn? Not so my lord; we serve with the hope of taking prisoners and getting ransom. Your men have even now killed a gentleman of mine for whom I should have got at least five or six thousand crowns ransom." Whatever their object may have been in serving the schismatic king, Henry thought very highly of them, and when in the year 1545 he was about to send Warwick to attack the Scots, an opportunity occurred for him to engage some more, he gladly seized it. Charles V. had disbanded a large proportion of his army after the peace of Crespi was concluded, and had embarked them for Spain with orders that, under pain of death, they were to take service with no other sovereign. A ship with 800 or 1,000 of these disbanded soldiers on their way home anchored in the Downs, and the warriors being, we are told, "already tired of the sea," they sent an offer of their services to the King of England. The captain of the vessel, however, would not wait for the answer to reach them, but on his putting into Plymouth the whole of them landed and entered the English service. They were promptly sent off to Warwick's army in Scotland under an experienced old soldier of their number called Pedro Gamboa, who was made colonel, with power to create his own captains. Julian Romero landed with this force in some subordinate capacity, but on his arrival in Scotland received his first English commission as captain, from Gamboa. This was in the summer of 1545, and when the winter came the troops were put into quarters, whilst Gamboa and his newly fledged captains came to London to air their finery at Henry's Court. The King made much of them, and in the early spring of 1546, a temporary peace having been patched up with Scotland, ordered them to take their companies to the French coast between Calais and Boulogne, where the English were erecting a fort. Whilst Gamboa, Julian Romero, and the other new captains, had been ruffling at Court, receiving grants and attentions from the King, the three or four old Spanish commanders with their companies, who had been long in Henry's service, had been enduring hard fare and rough service, and obtaining but little loot at Boulogne; so that on the arrival in France of the new men, straight from Court favour, a very bitter feeling was shown towards them. One of the old captains, Cristobal Mora, deserted bodily with his men to the enemy, and another one, Juan de Haro, was killed in attempting to do so. It may therefore well be supposed that when peace was made in June, 1546, and the compatriots met again on neutral ground, there was a good deal of thumb-biting and recrimination. Mora was flouted in the streets by his fellow-countrymen for having disgraced the mercenary creed by deserting his paymaster before the enemy; whilst he retorted by accusing Gamboa and his friends of disobeying their natural sovereign the Emperor in taking service under an excommunicated heretic. Events came to a head at last by the deserting captain, Cristobal de Mora, sending a challenge from Montreuil to Colonel Gamboa in Calais in July. Either for some reason of disparity of age or rank between the two, or else out of mere hot-headed combativeness on the part of Julian Romero, the latter accepted the challenge for his chief, and has left upon record an extremely minute description of the fight. Sir Henry Knyvett went off to obtain the King of England's permission, which was gladly given, and "a thousand broad angels sent to Julian to put himself in order withal." The King of France ordered the erection of lists at Montreuil, where the wage of battle should be decided, and when all was ready Julian Romero, in the full pomp of war, started on his road from Calais to Montreuil, attended by a great company of English and Spanish gentlemen to see the fun. The following is the account given by Julian's friend.