The Pirate Queen by Ronald Susan

Author:Ronald, Susan [Ronald, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-10-12T16:00:00+00:00

26. The Famous Voyage

You will say that this man who steals by day and prays by night in public is a devil…. I would not wish to take anything except what belongs to King Philip and Don Martín Enríquez…. I am not going to stop until I collect two millions which my cousin, John Hawkins, lost at San Juan d’Ulúa.

—FRANCIS DRAKE, NOVEMBER 1578

While Drake was turning north toward the Chilean coast into the vast unknown, Elizabeth was facing a greater enemy at home. Men like Drake were rare, and while most of her courtiers and other adventurers rallied round to the greater threat imposed by an ever-stronger Spain, few had the daring and bravado to get under Philip’s skin in the way El Draco did. And none other than Drake understood the element of surprise. The queen had come to the realization that her adventurers were her only defensive and offensive weapons of any importance, and there were precious few of them. England’s merchant navy was small, with fewer than twenty ships above 200 tons. “Officially” between 1578 and 1581, they would snaffle no more than ten Spanish ships in the entire world. And Drake alone took at least twelve of them.1

Europe teetered once again on the brink. In the Low Countries, Alexander Farnese, the Duke of Parma and Philip’s nephew, had been appointed to execute the King of Spain’s will with intolerable brutality and cruelty against the Dutch. While the Spanish Fury raged in the Low Countries, Henry of Guise, uncle to Mary, Queen of Scots, had become Philip’s puppet and had the ear of the French king. As if the neutralization of France wasn’t bad enough, Walsingham’s and Burghley’s spies reported that something was afoot in Munster again, this time backed by the pope. And while King Sebastian of Portugal had been killed along with the ubiquitous Thomas Stucley in the Battle of the Three Kings at Alcazar in Morocco, his uncle Henry d’Evora, the sickly, elderly cardinal and head of the Inquisition in Portugal, was crowned Portugal’s new king. Worse still, Philip of Spain, according to Henry, had the next best claim to the Portuguese throne on his death. If Spain united with Portugal, all hope of checking Philip’s pernicious anti-Protestant influence against Elizabeth would be lost forever.2

This was the queen’s view of the tempests brewing in Europe. Of the Pacific and Drake, she could only wonder how they were faring, if she thought of them at all. Still God hadn’t abandoned them, in Drake’s words. After fifty days of a raging storm that had cost him his tiny fleet, the commander headed toward the rendezvous at 30o south and anchored twelve fathoms off the island of Mocha. But Drake had misjudged the animosity of the natives against the Spanish. As they rowed ashore, they were met with a shower of darts and arrows whistling directly at them, forcing them to retreat, while the natives splashed through the waves in pursuit. Drake was struck twice in the head, with one arrow narrowly missing his right eye.

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