Ten Great Events in History by James Johonnot Read online

  RENEWAL OF THE FIGHT.

  76. On Monday, July 29th, when the day dawned, Lord Howard discovered the Spanish fleet in great disorder, scattered over a wide space in the Channel. He immediately ordered an advance, and, while Drake made a bold attack upon the main body of the enemy, the lord high admiral drove upon the sands several of the sluggard vessels of the Armada which the fire-ships had failed to drive out to sea. For several hours he engaged the great galliasse under the direct command of Admiral Moncada, which was aground upon the sands. The vessel was captured and Moncada slain, and the English admiral hastened to the assistance of Drake.

  77. "It was well," says Froude, "that no more time was wasted over so small a matter. Lord Howard had already delayed too long for his fame.

  It was no time for the admiral of the fleet to be loitering over a stray feather which had dropped from the enemy's plume when every ship was imperiously needed for a far more important service. Medina Sidonia intended to return to Calais, but his ships had drifted in the night far to the east, and before his signal of return could be obeyed the English fleet was upon them.

  78. "Sir Henry Seymour, with his sixteen ships, having the advantage of wind, speed, and skill, came upon a cluster of Spanish galleons at eight in the morning. Reserving their fire till within a hundred and twenty yards, and wasting no cartridges, the English ships continued through the entire forenoon to pour upon them one continuous rain of shot. They were driven together, and became entangled in a confused and helpless mass.

  79. "Drake, in the mean time, had fallen upon a score of galleons under the direct command of Medina Sidonia himself. They were better handled than the rest, and were endeavoring to keep sea-room and retain some command of themselves. But their wretched sailing powers put them to a disadvantage, for which no skill or courage could compensate. The English were always at windward of them; and, hemmed in at every turn, they, too, were forced back upon their consorts, hunted together as a shepherd hunts sheep upon a common, and the whole mass of them were forced slowly eastward, away from the only harbor open to them, and into the unknown waters of the North Sea.

  80. "Howard came up at noon to join in the work of destruction. The Spaniards' gun-practice, always bad, was helpless beyond all past experience. From eight o'clock in the morning until sunset the English, almost untouched themselves, fired into them without intermission at short range. They ceased only when the last cartridge was spent, and every man was weary with labor. They took no prizes, and they attempted to take none. Their orders were to sink and destroy. They saw three great galleons go down, and three more drift toward the sands, where their destruction was certain.

  81. "On board the Spanish ships all was consternation and despair.

  Toward sunset the great Santa Maria went down with all on board. When the ships' companies were called over, it was discovered that no less than four thousand men had been killed or drowned, and twice as many wounded. The survivors were so utterly dispirited that nothing could induce them to face England's sea-kings again."

  CHASE AND DESTRUCTION.

  82. On Tuesday afternoon, July 30th, Lord Howard summoned a council of war, which decided upon a course of action. Lord Henry Seymour with his squadron was to return to guard the mouth of the Thames against any attempt on the part of Parma, while the remainder of the fleet was to continue the chase of the Armada. Ninety vessels, under Howard, Drake, and Frobisher, followed the flying Spaniards into the North Sea. "We have the army of Spain before us," Drake wrote, "and hope, with the grace of God, to wrestle a fall with him. There was never anything pleased me better than seeing the enemy flying with a southerly wind to the northward. God grant you have a good eye to the Duke of Parma, for, if we live, I doubt not to handle the matter with the Duke of Sidonia, as he shall wish himself at St. Mary's Port, among his orange-trees!"

  83. The wind, now strong from the south, had risen to a gale. The Spanish ships, so fashioned as to sail only before the wind, were driven northward. Between them and the shore, where lay possible safety, was the dreadful English fleet, which had battered them so sorely during the past ten days. Before them was the sea, full of unknown perils. "Not only man but God was against them. His wind blew discomfiture to their meditated enterprise. More than one poor; crippled ship dropped behind as her spars snapped, or the water made its way through her wounded seams in the straining seas. The Spaniards, stricken with a wonderful fear, made no attempt to succor their consorts, but pressed heavily on, leaving them to founder."

  84. The pursuit continued until Friday, August 2d. There was now no more danger to be apprehended from the scattered enemy. The wind was threatening, and, the supply of provisions beginning to fail, Howard and Drake determined on returning homeward, leaving a couple of pinnaces to dog the Spaniards past the Scottish isles. Though the wind was contrary, they beat back against it without loss, and in four or five days the vessels, with their half-starved crews, all safely arrived in Margate Roads, having done the noblest service that fleet ever rendered to a country in the hour of supreme peril.

  85. Meanwhile, so much as remained of the Invincible Armada was buffeted to and fro by the resistless gale, like a shuttlecock between two invisible players. The monster left its bones on the iron-bound shore of Norway and on the granite cliffs of the Hebrides. Its course could be traced by its wrecks. Day followed day, and still God's wrath endured. On the 5th of August Admiral Oguendo, in his flag-ship, together with one of the great galliasses and thirty-eight other vessels, were driven by the fury of the tempest upon the rocks and reefs of Ireland, and nearly every soul on board perished. Of one hundred and thirty-four vessels which, gay with gold and amid triumphal shouts and loud music, had sailed from Corunna July 12th, only fifty-three battered and useless hulks returned to the ports of Spain.

  86. The fate and exploits of the Armada are graphically summed up in the emphatic language of Sir Francis Drake. "It is happily manifested," he says, "indeed, to all nations how their navy which they termed invincible, consisting of nearly one hundred and forty sail of ships, were by thirty of her Majesty's ships of war, and a few of our own merchants, by the wise and advantageous conduct of Lord Charles Howard, High Admiral of England, beaten and shuffled together from Lizard in Cornwall to Portland, from Portland to Calais; and from Calais, driven by squibs from their anchors, were chased out of sight of England, round about Scotland and Ireland. With all their great and terrible ostentation, they did not, in all their sailing round about England, so much as sink or take one ship, bark, pinnace, or cock-boat of ours, or even burn so much as one sheep-cote on the land."

  CHAPTER VIII.

  FREEDOM'S VOYAGE TO AMERICA.

  DISSENT AND PERSECUTION.

  1. Through the middle ages England, like the rest of the world, had been in full communion with the Church of Rome. When the Reformation had swept over Europe and left dissent to crystallize into various Protestant sects, England too had dissented, and her king had established the Anglican Church. This church, when it assumed final form, had for its supreme head, not the pope, but the king, and under him the clergy held their offices. The Roman Catholic ritual was not, as in some of the European sects, entirely given up, but was modified to suit the new order. And when the change was effected, the new ministers firm in their positions, the new service-books ready for use, then the Catholics were summarily ordered to embrace the reformed faith.

  2. At that time it had not dawned upon the world that there might be more than one way to worship God in truth. Catholics honestly believed that Protestants were going straight to perdition, and Protestants as honestly believed that a like fate was in store for the pope and his followers. When this was the temper of conviction, the natural thing for each church to do was to persecute every other; not from hate, but from the benevolent determination to oblige men to accept the true religion and save their souls, even though it might be necessary in the course of proceedings to burn their bodies. Mixed with this legitimate missionary spirit were all sor
ts of political motives. The church, whether Catholic or Protestant, was closely connected with the state, and through all the corruptions of party politics religion had to be dragged.

  3. So, when the English state established Protestantism, its first duty and interest was to suppress Catholicism. After two Protestant kings, a Catholic queen came to the throne, and with her the Protestants fell and the Catholics rose. The former were forbidden their service, their ministers were turned out of their positions; fines, imprisonment, burning punished those who held out against the "true faith." Again the scene changed. The queen died, and by her Protestant successor freedom of worship was denied to Catholics, and the Anglican Church was re-established as the Church of England.

  4. Meantime, in the Church of England a spirit of criticism had grown up. Stricter thinkers disliked the imposing ceremonies which the English church still retained: some of the ministers ceased to wear gowns in preaching, performed the marriage ceremony without using a ring, and were in favor of simplifying all the church service.

  Unpretentious workers began to tire of the everlasting quarreling, and to long for a religion simple and quiet. These soon met trouble, for the rulers had decided that salvation was by the Church of England, as the sovereign, its head, should order. Dissent was the two-fold guilt of heresy and revolution--sin against God and crime against the king and English law. They were forbidden to preach at all if they would not wear a gown during service, and the people who went to hear them were punished. This treatment caused serious thought among the "non-conformists," as they were called, and, once thinking, they soon concluded that the king had no such supreme right to order the church, and the church had over its ministers no such right of absolute dictation.

  5. Various sects sprang up, called by various names, differing among themselves upon minor points, but agreeing more or less in dissent from the full, unquestioned rule and service of the Episcopal Church.

  Against all these dissenters the laws acted as against the Catholics.

  Not only must Englishmen be Protestants, they must be Protestants of the Church of England. Bodies were organized to keep strict watch of the non-conformists. They were forbidden their simpler church worship and fined if they did not attend that of the English Church. They were "scoffed and scorned by the profane multitude, and so vexed, as truly their affliction was not small."

  JOHN ROBINSON'S CONGREGATION.

  6. Among that division of the non-conformists called Puritans was a little congregation at Scrooby, a town in north England. The pastor was John Robinson, wise, kind, dignified, scholarly; and his helper in church work and government was Elder William Brewster, a college man who had served at the royal court. For the rest, the congregation were mainly Bible-reading farmers, who wished only to live in peace according to Bible teaching. Royal servants were watchful, and an open church was out of the question; but every Sunday they met for service wherever they could, sometimes in Elder Brewster's big house, sometimes out-doors, anywhere so that they might listen to their beloved pastor. During the week they worked their farms, thinking and talking of the iniquities of the Catholics, the impurities of the Episcopalians, the hard ways that beset the Puritans, and the righteous God who looked down upon it all to record and avenge.

  7. Quiet as such a simple church in a corner of England must have been, it was not left undisturbed. Priests of the dominant church and officers of the civil service soon pounced down with the demand that the Puritan farmers stop all this "new-fangledness," and return to the ways of the loyal church. John Robinson's people, however, had no notion of giving up their new-fangledness. They possessed a full share of English obstinacy, and, backed in it by their consciences, were not likely to surrender at once. So their troubles began. They were hunted and persecuted on every side. Some were clapped into prisons, others had their houses beset and watched night and day, and hardly escaped their hands, and the most were fain to fly and leave their houses and habitations and the means of their livelihood.

  8. What shall we do? thought the distressed farmers. We can not live in such persecution. We will have to go away. Give up? Indeed, no! We shall not belie our consciences for any man. Since God is behind us, we will not conform. And, under opposition and injustice, Puritan lips set themselves rigid, Puritan hearts closed against the persecutors, strong reaction from the beautiful ceremonies and graceful living that could hide such unbrotherliness became almost worship of unloveliness and hardship. In after years the lives of their descendants were shaped into a narrow severity, not drawn from the sweetness and light of the gospel which they read, but from the bitter fountains of their early sufferings and wrongs.

  9. What shall we do? cried the harassed farmers. We will have to leave our home and go to Holland, where others like us have already gone, and where, we hear, is freedom of religion for all men. Yet how should they get there? "for, though they could not stay, yet were they not suffered to go." And, if they should get there, how could they, who "had only been used to a plain country life and the innocent trade of husbandry," manage to live in a country where people spoke an outlandish language instead of good English, and earned their money by trade.

  10. Somehow God would help. Give up their religion they would not.

  They set about going. They bribed ship captains, feed the sailors, paid unreasonable rates for passage, and then, deserted by these same captains and sailors, tried it again with others, were betrayed into the hands of officers who rifled them of what money they had left and turned them over to prison. Hard luck! Set free from prison, they bargained with a Dutchman to take them in his ship to Holland, but as they were going aboard a company of armed men surprised them, and the Dutchman, afraid to be seen in such company, hastily sailed away with half the "Pilgrims," leaving the rest terrified on the shore.

  11. "Take us back!" cried the men. "Don't you see our wives and children crying after us!" But the Dutchman was afraid of the soldiers. "What will they do without us!" cried the men, straining their eyes to see all that was happening on shore. "Our goods are not yet aboard--take us back!" No use. The Dutchman sailed away, and the soldiers carried off the frightened women and children to prison. When the authorities had them safely locked up, they did not know what to do with silly women and helpless children, who cried for their husbands and fathers, and when asked concerning their homes cried the more and declared they hadn't any; and, after making themselves sufficient trouble, they solved the important problem by letting the ridiculous creatures go again. The Dutchman's ship, through a terrible storm, came to land. The distressed husbands sought the distressed wives, and troublous wanderings ended in reunion. So were they continually thwarted; but, by one means or another, determined wills bent circumstances to their end, and at last they reached Holland.

  12. Strangers as they were, destitute, all unused to the new life and people, they had trouble enough at first, but they wasted little time staring at the new world. It was a world they were to become a part of as soon as possible, and, with characteristic earnestness, they fell to work at any thing they found to do. After a year in Amsterdam they settled in Leyden. They made them homes. They learned as best they could the uncouth language. They taught their farmer hands unaccustomed crafts, and applied their farmer heads to the mysteries of trade.

  13. Elder Brewster, with the tastes and habits of a gentleman, a rapidly diminishing property, and a large family of children, looked about for work, and presently obtained pupils whom he taught English after an original method. Later he set up a printing-press, and in printing Puritan books, forbidden to be published in England, found plenty to do. Mr. Robinson visited his people and was busy for their welfare, preached, studied, wrote books; he was a kind friend and helper, and a scholar besides, and proud of him were his devoted flock.

  14. Leyden Dutchmen looked with curiosity upon the knot of plain foreigners, sober men, quiet women, children named after all the Bible saints and heavenly virtues. Bibles they brought and evidently read.

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sp; It was rumored that together every morning and before each meal each household held service of prayer, and long sermons and various devotions wholly filled the Sabbath. Queer people, meditated the Hollanders. But they soon found that it was safe to trust the Bible readers. Though they were peculiar about Sunday, they were surprisingly certain to keep their promises, and for all their propensity to pray without ceasing they made most faithful workmen.

  Superintendents sought them for laborers, merchants willingly gave them credit; and with the passing years they became settled and quietly prosperous. The Bibles were not neglected, the daily prayers and weekly sermons were methodically attended.

  15. The unpretentious people were not unobserved. Many from England came to enjoy like freedom of worship, and far outside of Leyden John Robinson's learning was known. When Arminians and Calvinists fell into hot disputes, and Leyden ministers and university professors held public meetings twice a week to settle knotty points of doctrine, John Robinson was always there, listening eagerly to both sides. Many a famous talk he bad with the ministers and professors. We must have Mr.

  Robinson confute the Arminians, cried his friends among themselves.

  16. So on a day the Puritan pastor, somewhat demurring because he was a foreigner, yet withal not loath to ride a tilt with the enemy, confronted Episcopus, the Arminian professor; and it is reported by the Calvinists that his overwhelming arguments utterly nonplussed and put the great Episcopus to rout. Oh, those theological debates! About the paltry affairs of this world it was not right to quarrel. When personal considerations were at stake, Puritan worthies could bridle the tongue; but when was called in question some keenly felt phase of the truth, some doctrine their precious Bible seemed to teach, then the repressed fire burst into legitimate flame, and righteous indignation with magnificent effect hurled back and forth the thunderbolts of prophecy and psalm.