The Great Captain: A Story of the Days of Sir Walter RaleighTynan, Katharine
General
The Great Captain: A Story of the Days of Sir Walter Raleigh
Tynan, Katharine
Raleigh, Walter, Sir, 1552?-1618 -- Fiction
It was on the 21st of June that the fleet entered Cadiz Harbor. My lord
was on board the Water Sprite; and he had no sooner entered than he
received the fire of seventeen great galleons. But as though she had
been indeed spirit and not body, the Sprite went unharmed. Raleigh blew
his trumpets upon them in a great blare of defiance. Near at hand lay
the St. Philip and the St. Andrew, the two ships foremost in that attack
on the Revenge in which the brave Sir Richard Greville had fallen.
“These,” wrote he, “were the marks I shot at, being resolved to be
revenged for the Revenge, or to second her with my own life.... Having
no hope of my fly-boats to board, and the Earl and my Lord Thomas having
both promised to second me, I laid out a way by the side of the Philip
to shake hands with her, for with the wind we could not get aboard;
which when she and the rest perceived they all let slip and ran aground,
tumbling into the sea heaps of soldiers as thick as if coals had been
poured out of a sack in many parts at once, some drowned and some
sticking in the mud. The Philip burned itself, the St. Andrew and the
St. Matthew were recovered by our boats ere they could get out to fire
them. The spectacle was very lamentable, for many drowned themselves;
many, half-burned, leaped into the water; very many hanging by the
rope’s end by the ship’s side, under the water even to the lips; many
swimming with grievous wounds, and withal so huge a fire and so great a
tearing of ordnance in the great Philip and the rest, when the fire came
to them, as if a man had a desire to see Hell itself it was there most
lively figured. Ourselves spared the lives of all after the victory, but
the Flemings, who did little or nothing in the fight, used merciless
slaughter, till they were by myself, and afterwards by the Lord Admiral,
beaten off.”
“The poor Spaniards!” cried my Lady Raleigh with tears, even while she
was proudest; but as for me, I had no heart to rejoice or to be sorry,
being so marred myself, and scarce anything alive in me except my love
for her lord, and even that pulsed faintly.
He came home to be hailed with such cheers and shouts by the common
people as pleased the Queen but little, for she liked not to be eclipsed
by a subject. Besides, the victory gave her little treasure; and she
grew more and more miserly. Though my lord was glorious with wounds, she
even refused to look upon him, which led me to say, as I have said often
since, that the greatness of those Tudors lay chiefly in their hard
usage of those who made them great. However, there was to gauge a deeper
depth when the Stuart came to England’s throne.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account