The Lion Triumphant (51 page)

They were wary of each other; but I think she wanted to be proud of him and he wanted her to love him.

That was how events stood on that Whitsunday morning.

The weeks that followed were frustrating—for the Spaniards did not come. The ships continued to lie in the harbor. There was friction between the admirals, so we heard.

Jake hated inactivity. He was down at the Hoe each day waiting for the signal.

News arrived that the Armada had set out from Lisbon, but the weather had so harassed the ships that it was necessary for them to shelter in Corunna for revictualing and for the repair of damage to the ships.

In England this news was greeted with delight. It showed, was the general opinion, whose side God was on.

The waiting continued. The tension was growing. I never saw a man so impatient as Jake.

“What’s the matter with the Spaniard?” he growled. “Is he afraid to come out?”

We laughed and talked of how the great Invincible Armada had been unable to withstand the weather and had been forced to retire for repairs, but I was afraid of what the inevitable battle would bring. All my life there had been this conflict over religion. All through my mother’s it had been the same. I knew this was the culmination. I feared for Jake and I knew that Edwina feared for Carlos, as Jennet did for Jacko and Romilly for Penn. Those of us who had men who would go out and do battle were naturally especially anxious. What would happen if the invader set foot on our soil we did not know. We did not reason as far as that. Deep down in our hearts we believed no invader could ever conquer our land.

But there would be a mighty battle.

We heard that the Army was assembled at Tilbury and that the Queen had ridden among her men.

Jake’s eyes gleamed with pride when he spoke of her. “She sat her horse like a soldier and she carried a truncheon. Would to God I could have been there to see her.”

“Your place is here,” I reminded him.

“Aye,” he answered, “with Drake, Frobisher and the rest.”

I remembered seeing her all those years ago when she came to the Tower of London and had said that she would be to God thankful and to men merciful. Now she, like myself, was no longer young; and the years would have taught her much, as they had taught me.

She was a woman who could assume greatness when the occasion demanded it; and God knew this occasion did.

Her speech was circulated through the land and it did much to raise our spirits. I shall remember certain parts of it all my life.

“I come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst of the heat and battle, to live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God and my Kingdom and for my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a King, and of a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain or any Prince of Europe should dare invade the borders of my realm…”

These were the words which inspired us all.

And so we waited—some in trepidation and others, like Jake, with a frustrated impatience.

Then one day—it was July by then—and the nineteenth—the news reached Plymouth. The Armada had been sighted off the Lizard.

People came out of their houses, crowding the narrow cobbled streets. Rumor was in the air. There was excitement everywhere.

Sir Francis, playing bowls on the Hoe to while away an hour or so, said he would finish the game. There was time for that, and to bear the Spaniards afterward.

With Linnet, Edwina, Romilly and Jennet, I watched the ships sail out.

None of us spoke, but each understood the feelings of the others. Our men were going out to meet the greatest challenge of their lives. Their ships looked gallant enough with their sails billowing in the wind, but I trembled when I thought of the great galleons they must meet.

The Spaniards were in the Channel; they came with their much vaunted Armada. Our ships were dwarfs compared with theirs.

But as we stood watching them we
believed
in victory. So confident was Admiral Drake that he could beat the Spaniards that we all shared that confidence. Men such as Jake had never doubted it; and it was said that the Spaniards were aware of that strange certainty in the English ranks. They believed it was witchcraft, conjured up by the devil dragon.

I watched Jake’s ship, the
Triumphant Lion,
until I could see it no more. Carlos and Jacko each commanded two of Jake’s ships.

“Oh, God,” I prayed, “we shall beat the Spaniard, I know, but send back our men safe to us.”

All now know the outcome of the battle—how the mighty and dignified galleons were no match for the jaunty little English ships, how one of Drake’s squadrons lay before the harbors of Newport and Dunkirk and stopped all transport of troops from Flanders.

We know too how the English could make no impression on those mighty galleons and craftily waited until dusk when they set small ships ablaze and sent them among the galleons, so that the Spaniards finding fire on many of their ships, cut their cables and sought to get away, whereupon the English smaller and more agile craft captured some and destroyed others, although many escaped to drift along the Channel and out to sea or be washed up on the coasts where a hostile reception awaited them.

The spirit of men such as Drake and Jake Pennlyon was undefeatable because they knew they would succeed while the Spaniard feared to fail. The Spaniards were brave men doubtless, but they were no match for the English. The English were defending their homes; the Spaniard was out for conquest. Our ships could be victualed from the shore and pinnaces were constantly making the journeys to and from them.

Against us came the greatest fleet of ships ever, up to that time, to be put on to sea. What the Spaniards called an “Invincible Armada engaged in the Great Enterprise.” And it failed.

Back came the ships to the harbor. Linnet, Damask, Penn, Romilly, Jennet, Edwina, myself, we were all there waiting, our eyes strained to see the return of the ships.

Would they all return? Could we hope that all our men could come back to us?

I looked at Edwina, who was thinking of Carlos, and I took her hand. I understood her fears, for I shared them. And I thought back to my first meeting with Jake Pennlyon on this Hoe and how determined I was to fight him with all my might.

Please, God, I prayed now, let him come back. Let me go on to the end of my life with Jake Pennlyon.

What a day of rejoicing when they all came back. The
Triumphant Lion
was limping a little, but she was safe.

And her Captain? I was trembling, but there he was climbing into the boat.

The people were cheering madly. The news was all over the country. Bonfires were burning, bells were ringing. The Spanish Armada was broken and defeated. Some of those ships were drifting out into the ocean, some were being washed up on our shores. Few would return to Spain.

It was victory; and we owed it to our English seamen.

There was Jake. I ran to him and threw my arms about him. His eyes were shining.

“God’s Death!” he cried. “We’ve done it, Cat! We’ve wiped them off the seas! They’re finished. This is the end of Spanish power. It’s the beginning of ours. We’re going to be masters of the sea and the new lands. This is a day to be proud of. Yes, this is the day of triumph. The day of the Lion… My family, Cat, and my ships, my
Triumphant Lion,
this is the greatest day they have known. And the English Lion too, Cat, master of the seas! This is the triumph of the lions.”

I laughed at him. “You seem contented with your life this day, Jake Pennlyon.”

“Never more in my life.”

“If only you had a legitimate son, you’d be completely content.”

He looked at Linnet. “God’s Death!” he said. “I reckon my girl Linnet is as good as any son.”

She came to us then and slipped her arm through his; and the three of us walked home together.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Daughters of England series

I
T IS THE CUSTOM
for the women of our family to keep a journal. My grandmother did and my mother must have learned the habit from her. I remember my mother’s saying once that by doing so one lived one’s life more fully. So much is lost if one cannot remember it, and even memory is apt to distort so that what actually happened, when looked back on, often takes on an entirely different aspect from the truth. But if it is set down with the emotion of the moment—exactly as it appeared then—it can be recalled in detail. It can be assessed and perhaps better understood, so that not only does one preserve a clear picture of some event which is important to one, but with it acquire a greater understanding of oneself.

So I will begin my journal in the months which followed our glorious victory over the Spaniards, which seems appropriate because it was a turning point in my life. At this time we were all living in a state of what I suppose can only be called euphoria. We had discovered how close we had come to disaster. We had never believed that it was possible for us to be beaten, and perhaps this supreme and superb confidence was one of the factors which carried us through to victory—but at the same time we could soberly contemplate what defeat would have meant. We had heard stories of the terrible things which had happened in the Netherlands where men had stood out against the might of Spain. We knew that when the Armada sailed from its native land it came not only with the weapons of war but with instruments of torture. We knew that those who would not accept their doctrines of religion were tortured and burned alive; we had heard that men had been buried with only their heads protruding from the earth and there left to perish. There was no end to the tales of suffering and that would have been our fate … had they come. But we had defeated them. All along the coasts were the wrecks of their ships; some drifted on the high seas; perhaps a few returned to Spain. And here we were in a green and beautiful land, with our good Queen Elizabeth safe on her throne. It was a time for all Englishmen to rejoice and who more so than the men and women of Devon. We were of the sea and it was our own Francis Drake, whoever else might claim the credit, who had saved our country.

Captain Jake Pennlyon, my father, was in the greatest of good spirits. Lusty, strong, adventurous, determined to drive the Spaniards from the seas, despising weakness, assured of the rightness of his own opinions, arrogant, outspoken, bowing to no man, I had always thought he was characteristic of an Englishman of our age. I had hated him when I was young because I could never understand the relationship between him and my mother. I loved her devotedly, in a protective way; and I did not realize until this time how much she loved him too. In my youthful inexperience I misjudged their behaviour towards each other; they seemed constantly to be in conflict, but now that I was growing up I understood that these battles gave savour to their lives and although at times it seemed as though they delighted in taunting each other and that it was impossible for them to live in harmony, they were certainly deeply unhappy apart.

One could not feel mildly in any way towards my father so now that I had ceased to hate and despise him I had to love him and be fiercely proud of him. As for him, he had resented me because I was not a boy, but now he had made up his mind that his daughter was better than any boy, and I sensed that he was rather pleased that I was a girl. My three-year-old sister Damask was too young to interest him much, but he no longer wished for boys because he knew there could be none. He was content with his illegitimate sons. My mother used to say that he had scattered them throughout the world, and he did not deny this. The three I knew were Carlos, Jacko and Penn. Carlos had married Edwina who owned Trewynd Grange, the nearby mansion which she had inherited from her father. She was in a way a connection of the family because her mother had been adopted by my grandmother. Jacko and Penn lived with us when they were not at sea. Jacko had captained one of my father’s ships and Penn who was seventeen years old—a year younger than I was—was already going to sea.

We had lived so long with the fear of the Spaniards that without it our lives seemed suddenly empty; and although I had planned to start my journal there seemed so little to record. All through those weeks reports were coming in about what had happened to the Armada. Ships were constantly being washed up on the coasts, their crews starving; many were drowned; some reached the coasts of Scotland and Ireland and it was said that their reception there was so inhospitable that the lucky ones were those who were drowned. My father roared his approval. “By God,” he would cry, “if any of the plaguey Dons see fit to land on Devon soil I’ll slit their throats from ear to ear.”

My mother retorted: “You’ve defeated them. Is that not enough?”

“Nay, madam,” he cried. “It is not enough and there is no fate too bad for these Spaniards who would dare attempt to subdue us!”