He had spent Christmas in London. No young man with blood flowing through him would refuse his monarch's order to celebrate the twelve days of Christmas with the richest and most spoilt of the land. The memories blurred into each other. The swirling, flickering light from thousands of candies, the stately procession of the dance with the vibrant bodies, hungry for each other under the strict discipline of the music. Anna, with fire in her eyes, being swept round and round by a courtier whose tongue was hanging out, and who later offered her his whole inheritance for one night spent with her. She had sent him home to his mother. The dreaded moment when a really drunken Gresham had looked up to see that the dance had placed him yet again opposite Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. He had never danced as well, nor sobered up more quickly.
The men, the ships, the very countries involved in this great game of life now stood like dominoes stacked in a line, each one carefully placed over years through the scheming ambition of those with a desperate desire to retain power, or those with a desperate desire to grab it. For years those dominoes stood still, silent, and then came the push. It only needs one of those dominoes to topple, and worlds shiver, history is changed.
The first of the great dominoes to topple and knock the next in line, was the death of Don Alvaro de Bazan, Marquis of Santa Cruz, Captain General for the Ocean Seas, hero of Lepanto, victor of Terceira and endless other conflicts and Commander for the Enterprise of England, on February 9th, 1588. He died, the old man, with no tears from his servants for this abundantly cruel man.
Then the worst day in his life came to the Duke of Medina Sidonia. It had started badly. There was rarely peace for any Spanish grandee, living his life from dawn till dusk in the eyes of his people, the few snatched hours of night with his wife the only time he was not on show. It was his duty, he accepted it both as his responsibility and his birthright, but sometimes he ached for isolation. Having returned from Cadiz he had been sitting in judgement on tenants all day, and one particularly unpleasant case where a man had denied God, his duties as a tenant, and his duties as a husband and father had sickened him. So it was that he had a strange feeling that things were not well, coupled with a great restlessness.
The messengers arrived at his home as he did. King Philip never sent one man where ten would do. The letter hit him like a sword through his heart. Santa Cruz was dead. His King required the Duke of Medina Sidonia to become Commander by Sea for the invasion of England. He clutched the parchment in his hand, frozen, the blood draining from his face. For minutes he said and did nothing. Then, with a slow walk, he called for his Secretary. He had no time to think over his response, merely to feel the awful dread pulling at his heart. It was from his heart finally that he wrote to his King.
My health is not equal to that needed for such a voyage. I know this since the few times that I have been at sea I was sea sick and always caught a fever. My family have debts of over nine hundred thousand ducats. I have no money to spend on the enterprise, nothing to spend even for my King. I have no experience of war, nor of the sea. How is it that I can be suited for such a great command I know nothing of what Santa Cruz has been doing. I have no intelligence of England. I fear therefore that I will let myself and you, Your Majesty, down most terribly, acting as a blind commander, relying on the advice of those I do not know, unable to distinguish truth from lies, the good advice from the bad…
As soon as he had sealed it and sent it he regretted the impetuosity with which he had written. Fretfully his mind told him that his response would make him look like a coward. He feared such an accusation against his honour, far more than he feared death itself. Yet equally potent in his growing sense of despair was the realisation that his letter would fail, of course. Like all limited men, Philip was incapable of changing his mind, not seeing that sometimes to do so was wise, but seeing it rather as him being proven wrong. And the King with God's ear could never be wrong.
He knew why he had been appointed. They were proud men, the sea captains of the Spanish Empire, and men uniquely conscious of their rank. Well, Sidonia was superior to any of them in rank and, more importantly, breeding. He had the status to quell the extra proud spirits of the other commanders. Was all lost? These commanders had won and held an Empire. There was huge skill and knowledge in their ranks. They would give him the military advice he would be so desperately in need of. Yet the challenge! Not the challenge of fighting. He was born to that. It was the challenge of marshalling over one hundred ships and ten thousand troops languishing in Lisbon harbour, every month's delay costing seven hundred thousand ducats.
He wrote again, of course, two days later. Useless though he knew it was, he felt he owed it to himself. And to history, if anyone ever bothered to read his laboured offering. He was more reasoned, this time, questioning the whole wisdom of the Enterprise. The sea was a fickle battleground. A storm could destroy the whole endeavour in an hour. As Sidonia understood it, the Duke of Parma was penned in behind shallows patrolled by the infamous Dutch fly-boats, waters no ship the Spanish possessed could travel. It did no good. Don Cristobel de Moura, the most influential of King Philip's secretaries, wrote back immediately.
We did not dare show His Majesty what you have written. God will see that the Armada is victorious.
Well, so he might, the Duke thought as he mounted his horse for the journey to Lisbon. Yet in his experience, God rarely made up for man's inadequacy, and there were very many inadequacies that needed to be dealt with before the Armada could hope to succeed.
On arrival in Lisbon the first thing the Duke of Medina Sidonia saw were great sackloads of paper being carted out of Santa Cruz's administrative headquarters. All the paperwork for the Armada. Invoices, bills of lading, lists of ships, charts, all vital to an invasion. It belonged personally to Santa Cruz, of course. There was no doubt about that. History and tradition dictated it was so. Sidonia called over the most sympathetic and charming of his secretaries, gave him clear instructions. Somehow those papers had to be retained and preserved, at all costs. The Duke was starting to realise that the actual fighting would be the easiest part of this endeavour.
And so the dominoes continued to fall. Cecil called for Gresham. It was their first meeting since the night Gresham had returned from sea.
'The Queen has pushed for negotiations with the Spanish forces in the Netherlands, and the Duke of Parma has agreed,' said Cecil. 'I can tell you now that the death of Santa Cruz has just been reported.'
What a surprise, thought Gresham. Mannion will be gutted.
'The death of Santa Cruz will throw the Spanish into confusion. We leave from Dover, for Ostend, immediately, in the hope that we can profit from that confusion. I have been allowed to join the party as an observer, as you expected.' Cecil's chest seemed to swell, 'In fact I have been asked to use my best endeavours to obtain the maximum amount of information on the military preparedness of the Netherlands.'