Elizabeth I to James VI, August 1588: the Armada Flees to North.

After months of intense preparation and excruciating waiting the first sighting of the Spanish fleet was reported.

On Friday last, the 20th of this instant [June 1588], Sir Francis Godolphin wrote unto my Lord Admiral, that the Thursday before, a bark of Mousehole in Cornwall, being bound for France to lade salt, encountered with nine sail of great ships between Scilly and Ushant, bearing in North-East with the coast of England.¹

The English forces were not as well prepared as the leadership had hoped. Unusually strong winds were forcing much of the Navy to remain in port or to coast towards the north.

Unbeknownst to them, the Spanish preparations went orders of magnitude worse and the winds would come around to leave them, instead of the English, at the disadvantage. The highly experienced Spanish Admiral of the Fleet fell ill and had to be replaced. The ships were in ill-repair and the fleet's victuals were spoiled. As much as the vast English effort at maintenance and victualing (an obsession of the English leadership) had fallen worrisomely short, the Spanish effort had been a disaster. Its advantage of numbers was an illusion in that most of the ships and crews were barely able to function.

The coordination to transport the Duke of Parma's 30,000+ man invasion force was proving impossible. The Duke himself had arranged for too few transports and too small. As they waited for the Spanish to coordinate transport their own victuals were running dangerously low. But, in early August, they were still watched with trepidation. The English forces still remained at arms. In the end, the Duke's would remain in Flanders to pillage the locals.

In this midst of all of this, on August 4^th, the Scottish King James VI sent a letter to Queen Elizabeth offering

For this effect then have I send [you] this present heirby to offer unto [you] my Forces, my Person, and all that I may comand, to be imployit against [the invaders].

In retrospect, it is difficult to believe that he did not know that he was offering to come fashionably late. By the time he could muster a meaningful force, arm and victual it, and march to the mid-English coast, the battle would highly likely have been decided.

Elizabeth's answer, though undated, cannot have gone out much before her famous speech at Tilbury, on August 9^th, if at all. The danger of invasion was greatly reduced. She was concerned, we see, with altogether other matters.

Answer to James VI letter From Edinburgh the fourt of August 1588. [partially modernized]:

NOW may appeare, my Deere Brother, how Malice joined with Might strives to make a shamfull end to a villanus begininge. For, by Goddes Singuler Favour, having their Fleet well beaten in our narrow Seas, and pressing with all Violence to achieve some Watering Place to continue their pretended Invasions, the Winds have caried them to your Coasts, where I doubt not they shall receive small Succour and less Welcom, unles those Lordes, that so traiterouslike would busy their own Prince, and promise an other King Relief in your name, be suffered to live at liberty to dishonor youe Peril and advance some other (which God forbid you suffer them live to do) therefore I send you this Gentleman, a rare Tongue Man and wise, to declare unto you my full a opinion in this great Cause, as one that never will abuse you to serve any one turn, nor will you do ought that my self would not perform if I were in your place;

You may assure your self that, for my part, I doubt no whit but that all this tryrannicall proud and brainsick Attempt will be the begining, though not the end, of the Ruin of that King, that most unkingly, even in the midst of treating Peace, begins this wrongfull Warr, he hathe procured my greatest Glory that meant my sorest Wrack, and hathe so dimmed the Light of his Sunshine, that who hath a Will to obtain Shame, let them keep his Forces Companye: 

But for all this, for your best sake, let not the friends of Spain be suffered to yield them Force, for although I feare not in the end the sequel, yet, if by having them unhelped you may increase the English Hearts unto you, you shall not do the worst Deed for your behalf; for, if ought should be done; your excuse will play the Boyteux [be lame] if you make not work with the likely Men to do it, look well unto it I beseech you, the necessity of this matter makes my scribbling the more speedy, hoping you will measure my good affection with the right ballance of my Actions, which to you shall be ever such as I have professed, not doubting of the reciprocque of your behalf according as my last Messenger unto yow hath at large signified, for the which I render you a million of gratefull Thanks, together for the last general Prohibition to your Subjects not to foster or aid our general Foe, of which I doubt not the Observations if the Ringleaders be safe in your hands, as knoweth God, who ever have you in his blesscd keeping, with many happy Yeares of

Your most assured loving Sister and Cousin,

Elizabeth R.²

At this point, the Spanish fleet has scattered and run toward the north. They are expected to try to take refuge along the Scottish coast or with the Irish rebels with which they have long been allied. There they will, indeed, try to replenish their supplies and to sneak back to Spanish ports. Elizabeth informs James that she has no need of his army in England but that it should be hunting down and capturing or killing any ships and crews that try to take refuge in Scottish ports.

1Rymer, Thomas. Foedera (1615). XVI.18.

2Rymer, XVI, 18-9.

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