If the Armada Had Landed: A Reappraisal of …classroom.kleinisd.net/users/1243/docs/if_the_armada_had_landed.pdf · Geoffrey Parker, ‘If the Armada had Landed’, History, lxi

© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Blackwell Publishing LtdOxford, UKHISTHistory0018-26481468-229X© 2008 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.XXXOriginal Articles

IF THE ARMADA HAD LANDEDNEIL YOUNGER

If the Armada Had Landed: A Reappraisal of

England’s Defences in 1588

NEIL YOUNGER

University of Birmingham

Abstract

The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 stands as one of the greatest triumphs ofElizabeth I’s reign, but, the success of the navy notwithstanding, received wisdompresents the land defences as woefully inadequate. This article shows that the existingpicture of the English preparations is flawed in several ways and that they were betterorganized, more efficient and more willing than has been recognized. The privy councilwas called upon to deploy limited forces to defend a long coastline against an unpredict-able attacker, and the evidence shows that they contrived to maximize the effectivenessof the available resources whilst balancing the calls of military practicality, financialnecessity and political constraints. An assessment is also made of the response fromthe counties, using the mobilization as a test case of the structures put in place by theElizabethan regime to deal with such an emergency.

I

n an article of 1976, Geoffrey Parker offered a bleak assessment ofEngland’s preparedness to face a Spanish invasion in 1588. In theface of the finest army in Europe, Elizabeth I’s preparations were

hopelessly inadequate. Preparations were ‘desperately behind-hand allover’. The strategy was poor, the command structure weak, the Englishofficers divided amongst themselves on the strategy to be pursued.‘The troops at Dover (most of them raw recruits) began to desert inconsiderable numbers when the Armada came in sight off Calais. In anycase, there were only 4,000 men in all, a ludicrously inadequate force.’The Duke of Parma’s invading army would have been facing ‘untrainedtroops without clear orders, backed up by only a handful of inadequatelyfortified towns’. On top of all this, the defensive forces were concentratedin Essex, and not the real intended target, Kent. Parker’s account, developedover several works, has perhaps been the most influential treatment of

I would like to record my gratitude to Richard Cust, Simon Adams and this journal’s anonymousreader for their comments on this article. I must also acknowledge the support I have received fromthe AHRC, formerly the AHRB.

NEIL YOUNGER 329

© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing.

the subject, leaving the enduring impression that English forces were ‘inthe wrong place’.

1

More recent studies have certainly been more favourable to the Englishpreparations, but there is still no entirely satisfactory account of themobilization. Existing historiography on the land forces in 1588 containsa number of significant errors and misapprehensions with regard both tothe overall picture of the privy council’s planning against invasion and tothe events themselves.

2

This article aims to provide a new overview of thedefence, and to assess it in the context of Elizabethan military policy.In the light of recent developments in the historiography of the Englishstate, it also provides a test case of issues around the power of the centralstate, its organizational and strategic capabilities, and the response ofthe counties.

3

These were in large part efficient, capable and willing, andoverall, the English preparations were more impressive than is oftenthought. Whether they would have been sufficient to repel the Spanishremains, however, a moot point.

Before looking at the events of July and August 1588 in detail, somebackground must be given on the development of the English militiasystem in the preceding years, since this sets the parameters within whichthe council operated during the crisis. As far as land defences go, thecentral issue is that of what troops would be available to defend againstan invasion. The Elizabethan state possessed no standing army, asidefrom those troops on active service in the Netherlands or in permanentgarrisons in Ireland and Berwick. These were not only few in number,but also difficult to extract from their duties for home defence. In practice,the government had to depend largely on the county militias. It wasrecognized from early in the reign that the existing militia, as codifiedby the Marian militia acts of 1558, was unequal to the demands of post-military revolution warfare. Soldiers needed to be equipped with moremodern armour and weaponry, particularly the pike and the caliver ormusket, and they needed to be trained to use these weapons effectively.Thus, from the early 1570s onwards, the government had been attemptingto implement a nationwide scheme of ‘trained bands’, whereby eachcounty would establish units of specially selected men, organize them

1

Geoffrey Parker, ‘If the Armada had Landed’,

History

, lxi (1976), 358–68 [hereafter Parker,‘If the Armada had Landed’]. It should be acknowledged that this article addresses only thoseparts of Parker’s article which concern English preparations, and seeks neither to challenge Parker’sexpertise on the Spanish forces, nor to speculate on the possible outcome of an invasion. See alsoColin Martin and Geoffrey Parker,

The Spanish Armada

(1988) [hereafter Martin and Parker,

The Spanish Armada

], pp. 265–77; Parker,

The Grand Strategy of Philip II

(1998; pbk edn. 2000)[hereafter Parker,

Grand Strategy

], pp. 226–7.

2

The privy council was the monarch’s principal executive body, with members including all ofthe leading political figures of the day, notably William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Robert Dudley, earlof Leicester, and Sir Francis Walsingham. It took overall responsibility for defence planning andco-ordination.

3

These issues have been explored with regard to the north in Michael J. Braddick, ‘“Uppon thisinstant extraordinarie occasion”. Military Mobilization in Yorkshire before and after the Armada’,

Huntington Library Quarterly

, lxi (1998), 429–55.

330 IF THE ARMADA HAD LANDED


under captains and other officers, provide them with modern weaponsand equipment, and periodically train them, in the hope that they mightbe of some use in the event of an invasion. Since the trained bands policywas not only expensive and troublesome, but also unsanctioned by anystatute, it had been broadly resisted in the country, largely with the kindof quiet inactivity at which the English gentry excelled. Thus, althoughthe council made major pushes to have the policy implemented in 1573and again in 1577, it met with very limited success. The council took upthe policy again at the start of 1584, with considerably more energy andpersistence, and pursued it right through to 1588 and beyond. This time,the response was more impressive: each county at least accepted theprinciple of the plan, and made some effort to implement it. Most countiesalso used the remainder of the weaponry available to set up bands ofarmed (‘furnished’) but untrained men; a second standard, as it were.A number of factors may be adduced to explain this greater level ofco-operation. Certainly the council’s supervision was closer and morepersistent from 1584, but the danger against which the trained bandswould be defending – a Spanish invasion – was more obviously threatening.

4

Another important factor was the reintroduction of the office of lordlieutenant across the country between 1585 and 1587, which provided amuch more coherent and effective structure for communicating andenforcing council orders than had the commissioners of musters whichthey superseded.

By 1588, the privy council was able to plan its defence against theexpected invasion attempt in the knowledge that it could call upon rea-sonably well-established companies of men in every county, numberingfrom over 7,000 armed men in Kent to just 300 in Flintshire. The limita-tions of these troops were clear. Only a proportion of them (somewherebetween one-half and two-thirds) were even nominally trained, and it iscertain that the quality of their training would have varied widely, sothey were clearly no match, man-for-man, for the Spanish

tercios

. Never-theless, the trained bands were a major improvement on what had gonebefore, in that they were at least suitably armed, and placed within acoherent command structure provided by the lieutenancy and theircaptains, mainly local gentry. It should be emphasized that the trainedbands were central to the government’s plans for defence. Although thenobility and the clergy were called upon to provide troops for defence,the trained bands far outnumbered these and were in effect the beginningand end of the available forces. The council’s planning, therefore, largelyrevolved around distributing these relatively scarce resources along along and vulnerable coast.

4

For an outline of the trained bands programme up to 1588, see Lindsay Boynton,

The Eliza-bethan Militia 1558–1638

(1967) [hereafter Boynton,

Elizabethan Militia

], ch. 4, esp. pp. 91–5;Neil Younger, ‘War and the Counties: The Elizabethan Lord Lieutenancy, 1585–1603’ (PhD thesis,University of Birmingham, 2007), pp. 54–91.

NEIL YOUNGER 331


In addition to the military shortcomings of the militia, there wereother important constraints on the council’s planning. The trained bandswere not units of a national militia, but county militias, which tradition-ally had no obligation to serve outside their own counties. In a momentof crisis, they might well be more concerned with defending their ownhomes than uniting to face the enemy. This was particularly the case inthe maritime counties, whose role had traditionally been to defend theirown coasts against invasion. Another key consideration in planning thedefensive strategy was financial: the Elizabethan government was not ina position to be able to keep troops waiting for long periods in case of aninvasion, because they had to be paid, and the money was not available.In the overall defensive strategy, by far the most important element wasthe navy, which had to prevent any landing. No risks could be taken withits funding, and so any land mobilization had to be kept as brief andcheap as possible.

The English defence planning against the expected attack was a mixtureof obvious imperatives and frightening uncertainties. The basic plan fordefence against invasion had remained essentially the same throughoutElizabeth’s reign, traceable as far back as 1559. The county militias inthe coastal counties would respond to an initial amphibious attack,supporting each other as necessary, whilst the inland counties’ forceswould form a separate army either as a reserve or to defend the queenand capital.

5

The scenario in 1588 was more complex, as the council wasaware that they faced two separate enemy forces, the Armada itself, andthe army of Flanders, able to attack together or, potentially, independ-ently. The council of war held on 27 November 1587 considered it likelythat the Armada would want to seize a major port on the south coast, inorder to regroup and possibly send for aid; Plymouth was thoughtmost likely, Portland and a number of other ports a possibility.

6

Thus, alanding attempt might fall on any one of a significant number of placeson the south coast, or even in Wales. Secondly, the main attack fromFlanders had to be considered, and here the case was simpler: Parma’sarmy had to take a short route across the Channel, so Kent or Essex wasalmost certain to be a target.

This much was straightforward. By mid-July 1588, however, as SimonAdams has recently identified, the council had become convinced thatthe main attack would be made directly on London or the Thames estuaryitself. It is not clear what intelligence lay behind this conclusion, but it is

5

Roger Vella Bonavita, ‘The English Militia, 1558–1580: A Study in the Relations between theCrown and the Commissioners of Musters’ (MA thesis, University of Manchester, 1972), pp. 11–12;Boynton,

Elizabethan Militia

, p. 140; National Archives [hereafter NA] State Papers [hereafter SP]12/206/2.

6

There are a number of copies of the council of war’s report, which differ somewhat. NA SP12/209/49, 50.

The Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson in Six Books

, II, ed. M. Oppenheim (NavyRecord Society, xxiii, 1902) [hereafter

Monson Tracts

], pp. 267–9. Historical Manuscripts Commission[hereafter HMC]

The Manuscripts of the Right Honourable F. J. Savile Foljambe, of Osberton, Notts

[hereafter

Foljambe

], p. 32. British Library [hereafter BL] Harleian MS 168, fos. 110r–114r.



crucial in understanding the whole mobilization.

7

It required a substantialrethinking of the plan: on 17 July 1588, members of the privy councilincluding Lord Hunsdon, Sir Thomas Heneage and Sir John Wolley metwith Sir John Norreys and Sir Thomas Leighton to discuss how torespond, and the following day, Norreys was sent to view the Thamesand consider its defence.

8

With London assumed to be the primary target,the key point of weakness was evidently the north bank of the Thames.An enemy force landing in Kent would take some time to reach London:it would face resistance not only from the Kent militia and whateverother forces could be gathered, not to mention the fortifications thatexisted there, old-fashioned though they were, but crucially from thebarrier of the Thames. This was not the case for Essex: a landing on theflat north bank of the Thames would allow an extremely rapid attack onLondon, raising the spectre of swift and decisive defeat.

9

In addition tothe defence of the south coast and an army to defend the queen, therefore,the defence of Essex became a much higher priority, and by 19 July ithad been decided to place 5,000 foot and 1,000 horse there, as and whena landing threatened.

10

Thus, historical accounts which have seen theforces in Essex as a late addition to the strategy are clearly accurate, butit was of central importance, not peripheral, as, for example, John Nolanhas suggested.

11

This was, however, only seen as the most likely of several possiblescenarios. It remained unsafe to neglect other possible invasion spotsalong the south and east coasts. In order to be able to respond to any or

7

The belief that the attack would be made directly on London itself is revealed in Sir FrancisWalsingham’s letter to the earl of Sussex, governor of Portsmouth, of 24 July 1588, in which hedismisses the likelihood of an attack on the south coast, writing that ‘any time [sic] these twelvedays [we] have very certainly discovered that their whole plot and design is against the City of Londonand [that] they will bend their whole forces that way.’ The letter is printed in ‘The Armada Corre-spondence in Cotton MSS Otho E VII and E IX’, ed. Simon Adams, in

The Naval Miscellany

, vi,ed. M. Duffy (Navy Record Society, 146, 2003) [hereafter ‘Armada Correspondence’], pp. 80–2;see also p. 81, n. 2. This scepticism as regards an attack on the south coast and belief that theattack would be directed on London is evident in other letters:

Acts of the Privy Council

[hereafter

APC

], xvi. 176, 206.

8

T. Wright,

Queen Elizabeth and Her Times

(2 vols., 1838) [hereafter Wright,

Queen Elizabeth

],ii. 378 (Heneage to Leicester, 17 July 1588); BL Harleian MS 6994, fo. 128r. (Walsingham to Burghley,18 July 1588). The new intelligence appears to have kept Burghley awake on the night of 15–16July: NA SP 12/212/52 (Burghley to Walsingham, 16 July 1588).

9

Monson wrote: ‘if an enemy land on Essex side, he may march directly to London without let,impeachment, or other impediment, but by the encounter of an army’, whereas ‘if an enemy landin Kent he is kept by the river of Thames from coming to London’ (

Monson Tracts

, pp. 282–3).See also Burghley’s words, in his propaganda piece,

The Copy of a Letter

, the army was ‘betwixt theSea and the City’ (

Copy of a Letter

(1588), p. 21).

10

NA SP 12/212/66 (Burghley to Walsingham, 19 July 1588), printed in facsimile in N. A. M. Rodger,

The Armada in the Public Records

(1988), pp. 48–50.

11

Nolan argues that Tilbury was ‘primarily intended as a reserve depot’, which ‘may have beencreated to provide Leicester with a suitable command’ (John S. Nolan, ‘The Muster of 1588’,

Albion

, xxiii (1991) [hereafter Nolan, ‘Muster of 1588’], 387–407, at pp. 399–400). McDermott alsorefers to Tilbury as being ‘almost certainly intended as a subsidiary element of England’s defences’(James McDermott,

England and the Spanish Armada: The Necessary Quarrel

(2005) [hereafterMcDermott,

England and the Spanish Armada

], p. 240).

NEIL YOUNGER 333


even to all of these threats, the English forces had to be highly flexible.Consequently, the council settled on a plan with three main elements:troops from the maritime counties would remain in their counties tocounter any landing by the fleet; a larger force would be gathered inEssex, where the main joint attack was thought most likely to come; anda reserve army would be formed at London to defend the queen andcapital. Each element was essential to the overall strategy for turningback a Spanish invasion.

The first of these elements, described by the council as forces to‘impeach the landing . . . of th’enemy upon his first descent’, is by far theleast understood.

12

The trained bands in coastal counties, particularlyalong the south coast, were expected to offer initial resistance to anyattempted landing, buying time for reinforcements to be assembled. AsSir Thomas Scott wrote to Lord Burghley, even if his east Kent troopscould not repel a Spanish landing, they would at least delay it, ‘wherbythe inland partes of this Countie and other Counties adjoyning may bein the more forwardnes to staye the enemy from speedy passage toLondon, or the harte of the realme’.

13

Once the location of an attack wasknown, reinforcements would be brought in from neighbouring counties.Thus, if there were to be a landing at Plymouth, the trained bands notonly of Cornwall and Devon but also of Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset,17,000 in all, would have congregated to defend or counterattack. Shouldan attempt be made on Portsmouth, the Wiltshire troops would headthere instead, along with troops from Hampshire, Berkshire, Sussex andSurrey. Under this plan, 11,000–20,000 men would be available to defendany point between Falmouth and the Wash.

14

This was a long-establishedplan, and in the months preceding the crisis, local officials along thesouth coast had made arrangements with their colleagues in neighbour-ing counties for putting it into practice: the marquess of Winchester, forexample, lord lieutenant of Hampshire and Dorset, arranged a meetingwith the deputy lieutenants in Berkshire to do so.

15

The details of the plan are clear, therefore; the key issue arises fromwhat actually happened in the crisis. Almost all recent scholarship hasargued that the south coast counties’ trained bands coalesced togetherand marched along the coast, shadowing the Armada in case of a land-ing. As the most recent detailed account, that of James McDermott, has

12

HMC

Foljambe

, p. 45 (the council to lord lieutenants, 27 June 1588). A number of works on theArmada fail altogether to mention the forces on the south coast: Garrett Mattingley,

The Defeat ofthe Spanish Armada

, (1959); Martin and Parker,

The Spanish Armada

.

13

NA SP 12/212/40 (13 July 1588).

14

There are many copies of this plan, for example, NA SP 12/213/84. This plan has sometimesbeen misinterpreted to mean that the numbers of men shown all existed separately, rather than simplyrepresenting the planned response to different contingencies, thus dramatically overestimating thenumber of troops available: J. N. McGurk, ‘Armada Preparations in Kent and Arrangements madeafter the Defeat (1587–1589)’,

Archæologia Cantiana

, lxxxv (1970) [hereafter McGurk, ‘ArmadaPreparations’], 86;

Calendar of State Papers Domestic

[hereafter

CSPD

]

1581–90

, p. 519.

15

NA SP 12/213/29; HMC

Fifteenth report, appendix, part VII: The Manuscripts of the Duke ofSomerset etc.

, pp. 4–5.

APC

, xv. 269.



it, ‘as the composite host shadowed [

sic

] the armada passed eastwardalong the English coast, “old” formations – those that had come furthestfrom the west – dropped out and returned home as the bands of thecounties into which they advanced joined it’.

16

This argument seems tohave originated in Lindsay Boynton’s

The Elizabethan Militia

(it doesnot occur in earlier accounts, such as that of Conyers Read

17

). Boyntonwrites that

there were mobile forces, of indeterminate number, which remained in themaritime counties to shadow the Armada . . . They never, in fact, formedan army, so that their paper strength of 27,000 foot and 2,500 horse can-not be checked. Instead, as the Armada made its way up the Channel,they moved with it to cover as far as possible the landing-places along thecoast. Very little is recorded of their itinerary.

18

Boynton’s comments were, in the absence of detailed evidence, perhapsintentionally tentative. Nevertheless, the notion of a ‘shadowing army’has become firmly established, and is repeated,

mutatis mutandis

, in allthe major subsequent accounts of the mobilization, in a process ofChinese whispers. This literature is very vague, however, sources are notclearly stated, and it is nowhere clarified where this movement is sup-posed to have begun or ended.

19

In fact, aside from the intrinsic improbability, in the context of Eliza-bethan military capability, of a massed force moving along the southcoast with no overall commander or staff, there is no solid evidence thatsuch a movement took place, or even that it was planned in any detail.Only one document in the state papers deals with this ‘army’: a list ofJune 1588 of ‘Numbers of Men appointed to be drawn together to makean Army to encounter th’enemy’.

20

This must be a discarded plan. Thereis no reference in the state papers or elsewhere to a legal or administrativestructure for this army, such as a commander, a royal commission, orders,instructions, or means of paying the troops, such as are found abundantlyfor the Essex and London armies. Nor is evidence for such a force tobe found elsewhere, in the state papers or the council’s correspondence

16

McDermott,


, p. 371 n. 54. See also p. 238.

17

Conyers Read writes: ‘it seems likely that . . . large forces were stationed in the maritime countiesalong the channel. One list puts the figure at 21,272 fighting men.’ See Read,

Lord Burghley andQueen Elizabeth

(1960), p. 417 and nn. 37–9.

18

Boynton,

Elizabethan Militia

, p. 160.

19

McGurk, ‘Armada Preparations’, 71; Ian Friel, ‘The Defence of England in 1588’, in

Armada1588–1988

, ed. M. J. Rodriguez-Salgado (1988) [hereafter Friel, ‘Defence of England’], p. 125 andfigure, p. 124; Nolan, ‘Muster of 1588’, 402–3; Paul E. J. Hammer,

Elizabeth’s Wars

(Basingstoke,2003) [hereafter Hammer,

Elizabeth’s Wars

], p. 146; Mark Charles Fissel,

English Warfare, 1511–1642

(2001) [hereafter Fissel,

English Warfare

], p. 57; McDermott,


,p. 371, n. 54. Two works take a more doubtful approach: Joyce Youings noted that ‘a certain mystery,however, surrounds the mobile units which were supposed to be ready to cross county boundariesto relieve hard-pressed neighbours . . . whether they did so is not revealed by the records.’ See JoyceYouings, ‘State of Emergency’, in

Royal Armada – 400 years

(1988), p. 203; Bertrand T. Whitehead,

Brags and Boasts: Propaganda in the Year of the Armada

(Stroud, 1994), pp. 95–6.

20

NA SP 12/211/74; HMC

Foljambe

, p. 45. These are in effect copies of the same document.

NEIL YOUNGER 335


with the various lord lieutenants on the south coast – the earl of Sussexin Portsmouth, the marquess of Winchester in Hampshire and LordBuckhurst in Sussex, for example. Winchester’s letters to the council of25 and 26 July contain no mention of troops from Devon and Somersetmarching through his counties of Dorset and Hampshire: they areinstead shrill pleas that they should be reinforced – requests that thecouncil refused, pointing out that reinforcements were clearly not neededthere.21

Nor has evidence been found in local primary sources for such amovement. Neither A. L. Rowse nor Wallace MacCaffrey mentions it,and J. C. de V. Roberts does not provide evidence for his case that ‘itseems probable that these men [the Devon trained bands] moved alonginland more or less in step with the Armada’s progress up the Channel.’22

No reference to thousands of passing soldiers has been found in therecords of towns such as Southampton or Plymouth.23 Nor are theymentioned in contemporary accounts of the campaign, such as those ofCamden and Stow, both of whom had access to state papers – in fact,Camden notes that ‘twenty thousand Souldiers [were] dispersed upon theSouth shores.’24

What then did the south coast counties’ militia bands do? The council’smobilization orders of 23 July directed that county forces shouldassemble at a single predetermined point. However, as earlier orders of27 June had made clear, they were only to move to the coast ‘as occasionmay serve, to impeach the landing or [for the?] withstanding of th’enemyupon his first descent’.25 Short of an invasion attempt, they had no ordersto move, and such evidence as survives suggests that this instruction wasadhered to. When the Armada’s presence off the south coast becameknown, alerts were sounded by the firing of beacons and by messenger,and plans for the trained bands to assemble at certain places were carried

21 NA SP 12/213/29, 12/213/36; APC, xvi, p. 192.22 A. L. Rowse, Sir Richard Grenville of the ‘Revenge’ (1937) [hereafter Rowse, Grenville], pp. 262–4;idem, Tudor Cornwall: Portrait of a Society (1941), pp. 396–8; Wallace T. MacCaffrey, Exeter,1540–1640: The Growth of an English County Town (2nd edn., 1975), p. 239; J. C. de V. Roberts,Devon and the Armada (East Wittering, West Sussex, 1988), p. 257.23 The Third Book of Remembrance of Southampton 1514–1602, iii: 1573–1589, ed. A. L. Merson(Southampton, 1965), contains no mention of soldiers, only a reference to the dispatch of powderand shot to the fleet (at pp. 54–5). M. Brayshay, ‘Plymouth’s Coastal Defences in the Year of theSpanish Armada’, Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement ofScience, cxix (1987), 169–96; at 174. Brayshay points out that ‘it seems safe to assume that no suchmassive garrison of militia was ever assembled in the town. Had it come, soldiers would haveoutnumbered townspeople by three or four to one, and there is virtually no evidence in theBorough records to indicate that Plymouth was called upon to cope with an influx of county soldierson such an impossibly large scale.’24 W. Camden, Annales (1625), bk. III, p. 257 (my italics). Stow mentions only Leicester’s andHunsdon’s armies. See J. Stow, Annals (1592), p. 1264.25 APC, xvi, p. 169; HMC Foljambe, p. 45; the interpolation by the original editor. The councilregister contains only a précis of the letter, from which it is not clear that these orders are contingent onfurther orders which would follow as and when necessary. APC, xvi. 137–8.



out.26 In Hampshire, the beacons were fired, and around 2,500 troopsfrom the county mustered at Portsmouth.27 In Sussex, Lord Buckhurst‘assembled the forces of the cownty’, and the council suggested that theybe ‘disposed in apt and convenyant places’, even though ‘their Lordshipsdo not thincke that the Spanish Navy will or dare attempt to land onthat cost, beinge followed by the Lord Admyrall, nevertheless they thinkit meet his Lordship should not dismisse his forces untyll he hearefurther from them [the council]’.28 On the Isle of Wight, the governor,George Carey, assembled his troops into a camp; on 25 July, he informedthe earl of Sussex at Portsmouth that the two fleets had disappearedfrom sight by three that afternoon, ‘whereupon we have dissolved o[u]rcampe wherein we have continued since Monday [22 July]’.29 Accountsfrom two Cornish parishes suggest similar plans. From St ColumbMajor, near Newquay, the parish soldiers were provided with victual andmarched to Bodmin (about 10 miles) and then on to Liskeard (a further10 miles); similarly, armour was carried from Stratton, near Bude, toLaunceston.30 This would be consistent with forces assembling so as tobe in a position to defend Plymouth, without marching right into thetown, which, since the English fleet sailed out of Plymouth to engage theArmada as soon as it was sighted, hardly seemed to be in immediatedanger. All the evidence points to assemblies within counties, not as amassed army to march eastwards. Once the Armada was safely clear oftheir coasts, the troops were stood down, either on local initiative (as inthe case of the Isle of Wight) or on the council’s orders (in the cases ofHampshire and Sussex, on 26 and 27 July respectively).31

Late in the afternoon of Saturday 27 July, the Armada anchored atCalais. An attack on the south coast, prior to the rendezvous of MedinaSidonia and Parma, was now unlikely, so the council could focus itsattention on the expected assault on London. The chronological intervalbetween the potential invasion attempts is important: whilst an attack

26 Although there is little evidence, beacons do appear to have been fired: Viscount Montaguerefers to the firing of that at Ports Down, in Hampshire: NA SP 12/213/11. The Duke of MedinaSidonia also wrote that ‘on the 30th [July, n.s.], at dawn, the Armada was very near the shore. Wewere seen by the people on land, who made signal fires’ (Calendar of State Papers Spanish 1587–1603 [hereafter CSP Spanish], p. 395). Messengers, however, were a much more practical form ofcommunication.27 A muster roll was taken at Portsmouth on 29 July (NA SP 12/213/60). This document has beenmisinterpreted as showing that troops from Dorset reinforced Portsmouth, but all of the captainsnamed can readily be identified as Hampshire men. The Preparations in Somerset against the SpanishArmada A.D. 1558–1588, ed. E. Green (1888), pp. 117–18; CSPD 1581–90, pp. 395, 438–9, 443–4.28 APC, xvi. 176.29 NA SP 12/213/40 I (Carey’s report from the Isle of Wight, 25 July 1588, 8pm). According toorders laid down jointly by Sir John Norreys and the local authorities on 7 May 1588, the Dorsetmilitia were also to assemble at primary rendezvous points and then march together to Weymouth:NA SP 12/210/8.30 ‘The St. Columb Green Book’, ed. T. Peter, supplement to the Journal of the Royal Institute ofCornwall, xix (1912), 37–8; accounts of Blanchminster’s charity in Stratton, quoted in Rowse, Grenville,p. 263.31 NA SP 12/213/40; APC, xvi (1588), pp. 184–5, 194.

NEIL YOUNGER 337


from the Armada itself could have been made at any point once it wasoff the English coast, it would take some time for the rendezvousbetween Medina Sidonia and Parma to be effected, and for the attack tobe made on (as they thought) the Thames estuary. J. L. Motley, followedby Parker and Nolan, suggested that Parma might land as early as28 July, but this is hardly credible unless Parma had been ready to leaveDunkirk at the very moment Medina Sidonia arrived; as Parma alwaysargued, this was quite impossible: he thought he needed six days, so alanding on 2 or 3 August was his estimate.32

How accurately the English could estimate the likely date of attack isunclear, but they must surely have been expecting a few days of grace atleast. The council certainly took advantage of it when preparing thedefence of London. On 23 July, when the council first became aware ofthe Armada’s arrival off the south-west coast, it ordered lord lieutenantsin the south-east, the home counties and East Anglia to bring their mili-tia to full mobilization: the trained footmen were to assemble in oneplace in every county and measures to be taken for internal security. Thecouncil also explained in this letter that an army was to be set up inEssex under the earl of Leicester’s command, and ordered specifiednumbers of cavalry to report to his command at Brentwood by 27 July(a few were directed to the court, then at Richmond).33 Certain countieswere also to send contingents of foot either to ‘Stratford of the Bow nereLondon’ or to London itself. Those to be at Stratford by 29 July were500 each from Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and 1,000 each fromBerkshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and Surrey: that is, troops frominland counties with no responsibility for coastal defence. One thousandfoot from London, plus the Kent horse, were ordered to Gravesend,opposite Tilbury on the Kent side of the Thames.34 Although they arenot listed in the council’s records, the 4,000-strong Essex trained bandswere also called up, apparently by Leicester as lord lieutenant of Essex,to a rendezvous at Chelmsford.35

32 J. L. Motley, History of the United Netherlands (4 vols., 1860–7), ii. 488. Motley uses new style:7 August. Parker, ‘If the Armada had Landed’, p. 358. Nolan, ‘Muster of 1588’, 404. Six days:Martin and Parker, The Spanish Armada, p. 185.33 The Brentwood cavalry came from Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent,Middlesex, Suffolk, and Surrey; those for the court from Gloucestershire, Somerset and Sussex.APC, xvi. 169. The full text of the letter (which is summarized in the APC), which specifies that thecavalry were to form part of an army under Leicester’s command, can be found in HMC Foljambe,p. 48. On the 25 July, further horse from Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Somerset,Suffolk and Sussex were ordered up to London: APC, xvi. 181. The council received its first newsof the Armada around midnight on 22/23 July, by the hands of William Stallenge, who rode bringingletters from the Mayor of Plymouth: see ‘Armada Correspondence’, p. 79 and nn. 2–3 and therecord of the reimbursement of Stallenge’s costs for three horsemen: NA E 351/242, rot. 9 d. Hewas still at Plymouth at 8 a.m. on Sunday 21 July, and evidently covered the distance to Richmond(around 220 miles) in around 40 hours.34 APC, xvi. 171–2; The Twysden Lieutenancy Papers 1583–1668, ed. G. Scott Thomson (KentArchæological Society, Kent Records, x, 1926) [hereafter Twysden Lieutenancy Papers], pp. 70–1(Lambeth Palace Library [hereafter LPL] MS 1392, fo. 37r.).35 NA SP 12/213/21.



Thus, although the intelligence of mid-July 1588 certainly convincedthe council that further troops were needed to defend the Thamesestuary, the initial disposition of forces does not accord with the receivedpicture of a grand assembly of troops at Tilbury. The 5,000 trainedinfantry called up from the home counties were to assemble not atTilbury but at Stratford, which is much closer to London (about 3 miles)than to Tilbury (about 18 miles). It is not clear why this was; it may simplyhave been to allow greater practical or tactical flexibility: for example,Stratford was a more convenient point if it was thought that the troopsmight be needed on either side of the Thames. However, the relationshipof these forces to Leicester and his forces at Chelmsford and Brentwoodis unclear, as a note of the council’s discussions of the previous day sug-gests that Leicester was due to command only his own 4,000 Essextrained bands, 1,000 foot from London, and the county contingents ofhorse summoned to Brentwood.36 In addition, in the mobilization ordersof 23 July, the council specified that the cavalry at Brentwood would beunder Leicester’s command, but they did not do so for the infantry.37

Therefore, it is not clear exactly what had been decided with regard tothese troops.

Nevertheless, on 23 July, the same day as these orders were issued,Leicester was confirmed as commander in chief by a royal commission.38

This did not, as is sometimes stated, appoint him lieutenant general ofall England, or even of the south parts: he was made ‘lieutenant andcaptain general’ of ‘our Army that shall be provided to withstand allmanner of invasion of our realm by sea’. This commission – which waslargely unprecedented and never tested – left some doubt as to the preciseextent of Leicester’s power: it empowered Leicester to summon anddispose troops from the counties, but in fact it was the council whichhad been and continued to manage this. In practice, Leicester simplycommanded such troops as were assigned to him by the council’s

36 NA SP 12/213/4.37 HMC Foljambe, p. 48. Adams has written (‘Armada Correspondence’, p. 80 n. 1) that ‘thereappears to have been a decision taken earlier in July that in the event of a landing in Essex, Leicesteras Lord Lieutenant would command any troops assembled there’, but this is based on a misdatedletter: a council letter dated to 8 July in Twysden Lieutenancy Papers, pp. 70–1. The original (in facta late sixteenth- or early seventeenth century copy), in the Twysden muster book (LPL MS 1392,fo. 37r.), is dated 23 July, though, curiously, the date is written ‘2iij’; the ‘2’ has been misread as a‘v’. It can also be compared with the précis in APC, xvi. 169, and with the full text in HMCFoljambe, p. 48. The same mistake is made in McGurk, ‘Armada Preparations’, 82–3 and n. 63,and Parker, Grand Strategy, p. 227. Interestingly, in its letter of 27 June, ordering lord lieutenantsto be ready to respond to an attack, the council refers only to ‘such a person of quality as shall benotified to you to be appointed by her Majesty to be the General of the Army’ (HMC Foljambe,p. 45).38 This had been planned in advance: see ‘Armada Correspondence’, p. 80. It was delivered toLeicester by Sir John Norreys, who arrived at 3 a.m. the following morning: NA SP 12/213/21.See the text of the commission: HMC Foljambe, pp. 49–51.

NEIL YOUNGER 339


orders.39 In the event of an invasion this may well have changed, but thetone of his letters in the few days before and after the discovery of theArmada off Cornwall do not smack of the commander-in-chief.Although his responsibilities in Essex were important – the supervisionof the construction of the boom across the Thames, for example – he wasvery much dependent on the council for troops and supplies, requestingWalsingham on 25 July to ‘be not forgetfull to resolve what shalbe donehere [in Essex] & to lett me knowe yt as sone as may be’.40

Nor, up to 24 July, is there any reference to a camp at Tilbury. On 22July, when Leicester was arranging for powder to be dispatched to him,he asked that it be sent not to Tilbury, but to Brentwood.41 Only on 24July is Tilbury mentioned as a gathering point for defence forces (ratherthan as a fort), when Leicester told the council that he had decided upon‘a most apt place to begynn o[u]r camp in not farr from the fort at aplace called west Tylbury’.42 It is also interesting to observe that Leicestertalks here not of ‘establishing’ or ‘settling’ the camp there, but ‘beginning’it; in sixteenth-century terminology, the word ‘camp’ referred not to anentrenched position, but to a field army, and it may be that Leicesterintended Tilbury to be only a rendezvous point, a base for later mobileoperations against the Spanish invasion force, rather than some kind offortified camp.43 Given that any campaign on the flat north bank of theThames would likely be highly mobile in any case, this seems very plausible.Since the invasion never came, Leicester had no cause to reconsider hislocation and Tilbury continued to be the centre of operations.

To summarize, the council did not initially intend all of these troopsto form a camp in Tilbury; they may not have intended them all to beunder Leicester’s command; and they had not decided what to do aboutan army to defend the queen’s person. The overall pattern is of the councilgathering troops between London and the Essex coast but undecidedabout precisely what to do with them.

There is very little evidence showing what happened to the county levieswhen they arrived at Stratford. Leicester certainly proceeded with his campat Tilbury: on 25 July, he escorted most of the Essex foot from their

39 Leicester clearly understood that his commission was limited to ‘all forcs & Armyes ye North &Wales excepted’ (NA SP 12/213/55). This ran alongside Hunsdon’s commission (issued a few dayslater), covering ‘our Army . . . for the defence and surety of our own Royal person’. Neither commissionwas entered onto the patent roll (which was not unusual for commissions of lieutenancy or tempo-rary commissions), but both originals survive: Longleat House, Dudley Papers Box III, art. 62 andBerkeley Castle, Select Charters, art. 796. I am very grateful to Simon Adams for providing mewith these references. The text of Hunsdon’s commission is given in HMC Foljambe, pp. 53–5.40 NA SP 12/213/27. This underlines Adams’s emphasis on the close co-operation between seniorministers during the crisis: ‘Armada Correspondence’, p. 43.41 NA SP 12/213/10.42 NA SP 12/213/21. References to Tilbury are often confusing, since they can refer either to thefort or to the camp, quite separate establishments some miles apart. This appears, however, to be thefirst clear reference to the camp.43 OED: see Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,1558–1561, 1584–1586, ed. S. Adams (Camden Society, 5th ser., vi, Cambridge, 1995), p. 348.



rendezvous at Chelmsford to this camp, and the 1,000 militia from Londonprobably arrived the following day.44 It is very unclear, however, if andwhen other troops joined the camp; the principal documentary sourcefor the Essex forces, Leicester’s letters, do not mention the arrival oftroops from other counties.45 Leicester did write on 28 July that he wouldbe able to dispose his troops more flexibly ‘now I shall have this newsuply of vM [5,000] men’, which must surely refer to the 5,000 troopsfrom the home counties, ordered up by the council on 23 July, but it isnot clear whether he means that they were arriving at Tilbury or thatthey had been placed under his command; the phrasing would seem tosuggest the latter.46 Indeed, 28 July is the earliest date on which the councilregister makes clear that these home counties foot were assigned to hiscommand, and several later references make clear that Leicester was incommand of other forces: the ‘armyes and companyes’ (in the plural)referred to on 30 July, for example.47 But they do not refer to an army atTilbury; in his letter of 27 July inviting the queen to visit the camp,Leicester mentions ‘your army being about London (at Stratford, Eastham,Hackney, and the vyllages thereabout)’; these may have been the countyforces which had been summoned to Stratford and were to be under hisown command. He goes on to say that they would be ‘a reddy supply tothese countreys, Essex and Kent, yf nede be’, suggesting that it had notby then been determined that they would be stationed at Tilbury.48 Thereseems no reason to assume that they were all at Tilbury: they may havebeen, initially at least, dispersed, with foot at Tilbury and Stratford (orelsewhere) and horse at Brentwood. Having troops dispersed rather thanconcentrated had obvious advantages in terms of supply of food andwater, hygiene, maintaining order, and so on. A letter of Leicester’s evensuggests that he had no notion that all of his troops should be assembledfor Elizabeth’s visit to Tilbury: he told the queen that her presence would‘make gladd many thowsandes both here & not farr of’.49

By 1 August, however, Leicester may have assembled further troops atTilbury: the council directed the Norfolk levies originally intended for

44 NA SP 12/213/27, 12/213/38, both printed in State Papers relating to the Defeat of the SpanishArmada, anno 1588, ed. J. K. Laughton (Navy Record Society, vols. i–ii, 1894) [hereafter Laughton,State Papers], i. 305, 318. See Two Elizabethan Puritan Diaries, ed. M. M. Knappen (Chicago, 1933),p. 79. The Essex militia seem to have come in a great hurry, without having time to go home andprepare victuals.45 McDermott thinks other troops assembled in the five days after 25 July, and Christy writes that‘no doubt the arrival of the Essex men was followed quickly by the advent of other troops’, butneither provides evidence. See McDermott, England and the Spanish Armada, p. 241; Miller Christy,‘Queen Elizabeth’s Visit to Tilbury in 1588’, English Historical Review, xxxiv (1919), 43–61 [hereafterChristy, ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Visit’], at 46. The lack of evidence of further troops arriving at Tilburyis also noted in Susan Frye, ‘The Myth of Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury’, Sixteenth Century Journal,xxiii (1992), 95–114, at 97, n. 5, though she errs in taking the 4,000 mentioned in NA SP 12/213/27to be different from the 4,000 mentioned in NA SP 12/213/38; they are both Leicester’s Essex militia.46 NA SP 12/213/55 (Leicester to Walsingham, 28 July 1588).47 APC, xvi. 195, 203, 222.48 NA SP 12/213/46, quoted in Christy, ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Visit’, 46–7.49 NA SP 12/214/34 (Leicester to Elizabeth, 5 Aug. 1588).

NEIL YOUNGER 341


London to go to Tilbury ‘where the Lord Stewarrd laye ready in campeto receave them’; on the other hand, on 4 August they told the Suffolktroops to continue forward to Stratford.50 The English troops sent forfrom the Netherlands were also transported from Flushing ‘hether to theCampe to Tylbery’ (though they landed at Margate).51 Nevertheless,as late as 10 August, the day after the queen’s visit to Tilbury, EdwardRadcliffe, who was in command of a troop of horse, signed a letter fromBrentwood, suggesting that the horse were still camped there.52

Leicester also had overall charge of the army in Kent, by virtue of hiscommission of 23 July. A camp was erected at Northbourne, near Deal;it, too, is ill-documented, but it apparently consisted of 5,000 men at itspeak, probably shortly after the alarm was raised, plus 1,500 on the Isleof Sheppey and 1,200 at Lydd, near Dungeness. These seem to have beenreduced in stages: on 5 August, the council thought that 5,000 Kenttroops were in pay, but by 13 August, they had been reduced to about3,300. At any rate, the payroll lists only 3,513 foot, all from east Kent,and 336 horse, who were paid from about 29 July to 19 August under thecommand of Sir Thomas Scott and Sir James Hales as colonels of thefoot and horse, respectively. The west Kent militia were not listed onthe payroll: they were presumably called up on the initial alarm, and senthome when no immediate threat of invasion loomed (it may be that theywere held in reserve in west Kent so that they would be in a position tocounter an invasion attempt either in Kent or in Essex). They also providedpioneers for the works at Gravesend.53 On 16 August, Leicester called up1,000 from the west to replace the east Kent troops, but this must havebeen abandoned when the camp dispersed a few days later.54 Contrary toJ. N. McGurk’s assumption, there is no evidence that any Kent troopswere called up to London.55

At the same time as Leicester was pulling together an army in Essex,the council was working to assemble the third element of its strategy,which, according to the plan as it developed, was to form the largestsingle body of troops: that assigned to defend the queen, court and

50 APC, xvi. 209, 217. One wonders whether this latter was an error on the part of the council.51 APC, xvi. 230. Margate: NA SP 12/214/52, 214/61. Note that the index of the APC twice mistakesreferences to Hunsdon’s army for references to ‘The camp at Tilbury’: APC, xvi. 196, 197. Likewise,it indexes an order to deliver ordnance ‘to the Lord Steward to Tilberye’ as a reference to ‘the camp’(ibid., p. 208).52 ‘Armada Correspondence’, p. 87. For Radcliffe’s command of the horse, see NA E 351/242,rot. 3r.53 NA SP 12/215/7, 12/213/45, 12/214/52; APC, xvi. 222. It can be established that these were alleast Kent troops by the names of the captains listed in the payroll: NA E 351/242, rots. 5d.–7r; theKent section is in print: ‘Pay-list of the Kentish forces raised to resist the Spanish Armada’, ed.James R. Scott, Archaeologia Cantiana, xi (1877), 388–91. This account of the Kent troops differsmarkedly from McGurk’s version in ‘Armada Preparations’; I have preferred retrospective sourcesto the various plans used by McGurk, in particular NA SP 12/215/7, the report of Scott and Halesto the lord lieutenant, Lord Cobham, who had been at the peace conference at Bourbourg andarrived back in England on 7 August.54 Staffordshire Record Office, D593/S/4/12/16, D 593/S/4/12/14.55 McGurk, ‘Armada Preparations’, 88.



government. This army, too, was to be composed mostly of countylevies, which were ordered in two separate batches. On 23 July, infantrywere summoned from Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Leices-tershire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Somerset, Suffolk, Sussex, Warwick-shire and Wiltshire, 16,700 in all. On 28 July, further troops were summonedfrom several of these counties, and in addition troops from Berkshire,Devon, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey and Worcestershire,bringing the total to 27,150.56 These were to arrive at London only from6 August.

The force was to be commanded by Lord Hunsdon, although, again,it is far from clear that this was envisaged far ahead; there is no definitereference to his selection until 28 July, in a letter of Leicester’s. It wasonly at this point that the assembly of this army began in earnest: a com-mission was issued to Hunsdon and officers assigned and summoned.57

However, the decision to delay the rendezvous for several days meantthat this army – or its militia element at least – never really came intobeing. Most of the county levies, which had been ordered to arrive atLondon only from 6 August, were ordered to turn back before theyreached the camp and entered into the queen’s pay (for the example ofthe Gloucester troops, see below). The only troops to enter pay were 600foot from Northamptonshire, from 2 August, and 600 from Warwick-shire, from 8 August, all of whom were dismissed on 14 August.58 As theexample of the Kent troops shows, however, the payroll is not a perfectrecord of what actually took place, so it is probable that other contin-gents were in fact ready: the Surrey troops, for example, seem to haveassembled at Croydon, where it was envisaged that the Sussex contingentwould join them.59 Presumably, Hunsdon’s forces were intended toassemble around (rather than actually in) London, forming a unitedarmy only when necessary. As with other aspects of the mobilization, thecouncil’s approach was to have troops ready in position, but retain flexi-bility by leaving final arrangements to the last possible moment.

In addition to the county contingents, Hunsdon was assigned theforces provided by the nobility, privy councillors and the clergy, whichwere expected to come to around 5,300 foot and 2,150 horse.60 It is notknown how many of these arrived at London; as they were not paid bythe crown, they do not appear on the payroll. It may probably be

56 APC, xvi. 171, 186, 195–6. For some reason, the Huntingdonshire troops were summonedseparately, on 26 July; this may have been an afterthought. They were turned back on 3 August(ibid., pp. 215–16).57 NA SP 12/213/55. Note Leicester’s reference to ‘some special nobleman’ to command the Queen’sarmy on 26 July: NA SP 12/213/38, printed in Laughton, State Papers, i. 320; APC, xvi. 196, 197.58 NA E 351/242, rot 8r.59 The churchwardens’ accounts of Lambeth record 14d ‘to two men for goinge to Croyden tofetche ye Churche Armor after the breakinge uppe of ye Campe’, but it is not clear which campthis was, and whether it was the camp itself, or simply the demobilization, which was at Croydon;Lambeth Churchwardens’ Accounts 1504–1645 and Vestry Book 1610, pt. II, ed. C. Drew (Surrey RecordSociety, xliii, 1941), p. 173. On Sussex: BL Harleian MS 703, fos. 53v.–54r.60 Figures derived from HMC Foljambe, p. 57 and NA SP 12/213/84, which differ slightly.

NEIL YOUNGER 343


doubted whether many clergy forces came into the camp: although someof the certificates submitted by bishops are impressive (the 165 foot and35 horse certified by the archbishop of Canterbury, for example), otherswere much less assiduous – Wolton of Exeter sent in his certificate onlyon 18 August and Piers of Salisbury on 19 August, by which time thecrisis was decidedly past.61

The forces of the nobility are a different matter: noblemen who hadpledged to provide men would wish to be seen to do so.62 These troopswere raised through the clients and associates of noblemen, in the sameway as Leicester had raised his cavalry for his 1585 campaign in theNetherlands.63 Evidence survives of a number of examples of individualgentlemen offering their service to greater men. Burghley received anoffer of ‘xx or xxx furnished men, at my own proper charge’ from oneW. Wright of Hampshire, and Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth, Cheshire,offered him 200 foot armed with ‘bowes, jackes and bylles’, on the occa-sion of ‘the styrre and the newes about the southe partes’. Sir FrancisWalsingham apparently raised 50 lances, 10 petronels and 200 foot fromassociates such as William Darrell, a Wiltshire gentleman, to whom hepromised not only his own favour but access to and thanks from thequeen.64 This caused a problem in that many of the men called up bynoblemen were trained bandsmen (a fact which casts interesting light onthe social composition of the trained bands). Lord Chandos, lieutenantof Gloucestershire, complained that many of his men, ‘and those veriesufficient and able’, had been ‘sent to from their L[ord]s & m[aste]rs toprepare them selves with horse and furniture to attend them’, with theculprits including the earls of Worcester and Pembroke and some privycouncillors, thus seriously reducing the number of cavalry he couldprovide.65 There is evidence of similar problems in Essex and Dorset.66

Nevertheless, these may well have been valuable troops: the cavalryraised by the nobility and gentry had proved to be of relatively impressive

61 J. J. N. McGurk, ‘The Clergy and the Militia 1580–1610’, History, lx (1975), 198–210, at 200–3;CSPD 1581–90, p. 533.62 Sir Henry Cromwell, for example, brought ‘ten lances, ten light horse and ten carbines to serveher Majesty all of his own’, leaving Huntingdonshire on 2 August and apparently (though thelanguage is ambiguous) reaching London. BL Additional [hereafter Add.] MS 34394, fo. 36v.For further examples of nobles and gentry requesting permission to report for duty in London,see APC, xvi. 191, 205–6.63 Simon Adams, Leicester and the Court (Manchester, 2002), chs. 9, 12 and 16.64 BL Lansdowne MS 58, fo. 76r.; BL Harleian MS 6994, fo. 134r. (printed in Wright, Queen Elizabeth,ii. 386). On Darrell: NA SP 46/44, fos. 106–11; the relevant letters are printed in C. E. Long, ‘WildDarell of Littlecote (No. 2)’, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, vi (1860),201–14, at pp. 206–9. No money appears to have changed hands. Conyers Read, Mr SecretaryWalsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth (3 vols., Oxford, 1925), iii. 316. See also RobertEyton’s offer to serve the Earl of Shrewsbury in the same way: LPL MS 3204, fo. 155r.65 NA SP 12/212/74 (Chandos to Walsingham, 21 July 1588). For examples of the council instruct-ing lord lieutenants to release noblemen’s retainers from the trained bands, see APC, xvi. 127, 144,157, 174–5, 176–7, 179, 192, 207.66 NA SP 12/213/22, 12/214/31.



quality in the Netherlands.67 Little is known about where they camped orlodged or how many there were. It may well be that these troops were thereason that London was, in the council’s words of 4 August, ‘greatlyembarrassed with troops, sent to it from divers parts of the country, forwhom no fit entertainment in lodging and food can be made’.68

In all, Hunsdon’s establishment – foot, horse and officers – cost only£739 8s 5d, out of the £26,000 assigned to the treasurer-at-war, Sir ThomasHeneage, to cover the costs of the land campaign. This not only indicateshow small was its role in the overall mobilization (as it turned out), italso explains its neglect in the historiography. Ultimately, however,this was a success for the government’s careful and flexible planning.Certainly there was a strong element of brinkmanship in the operation,but efficient management of available resources is a crucial element ofmilitary strategy, and, with the Essex–Kent army estimated to cost £78314s 8d per day, this was a sensible policy.69

As mentioned earlier, a substantial chronological interval betweenthe point at which an attack would be made on the south coast and thepoint at which the joint Spanish attack could be launched was inevitable,and the council was able to use this to its advantage, in effect recyclingmany of the troops which would have been used to defend against anattack on the south coast. Many of the troops intended to form part ofHunsdon’s army were from counties with responsibility for defending thesouth coast: Dorset (1,000 troops), Somerset (4,000), Hampshire (2,000),Sussex (2,500), Wiltshire (2,300). When the council called up these troops,on 23 July, it was aware that such an attack still remained possible.A strategy of withdrawing troops from the defence there would thusseem absurd, even assuming the county authorities would execute it. Thecouncil’s stipulation, however, was for these troops to arrive in Londononly from 6 August, fourteen days later, so they would not need to leavetheir counties for several days at least. If the Armada did attack thesouth coast, plans would obviously change, and the long establishedmutual-aid plan would come into operation; these orders were, inevitably,only the council’s first response, only based on the most likely scenario,and always subject to change. Assuming, as the council did, that therewould be no attack on the south coast, the counties would be well awareof this by the time they had to leave for London, and so would have noqualms about leaving their homes undefended.

This double use of the troops is illustrated by the example of Sussex.When the first alarm came, Lord Buckhurst, the lord lieutenant, formedhis troops up into a camp, in case of an attack on the coast which nevercame. In the meantime, on 23 July, the council ordered 2,000 troops sent

67 Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, pp. 125–9, esp. p. 129. It is worth noting, however, that the councilhad to make provision for armour to be sold to some of them. See APC, xvi. 220; NA SP 12/215/71.68 HMC Seventh Report, MSS of W. More-Molyneux esq., p. 645. This letter is not in the councilregister.69 This estimate for the 17,000 foot, 1,200 horse, 500 pioneers and their officers from NA SP 12/213/90.

NEIL YOUNGER 345


from Sussex to London, to arrive on 6 August. Since this journey did nottake two weeks, it was clearly not intended that they should leave at once.Buckhurst issued final orders for the mobilization only on 31 July, whenhe would have had his orders for almost a week. The council had by thenincreased its demand on Sussex to 2,500, but they were all clearly still inSussex – there is no sign whatsoever that 2,000 troops had already left,and 500 additional troops followed them separately. Buckhurst intendedto arrange victuals at Reigate on 8 August and Croydon the day after, sothey would perhaps have expected to leave on 6 August (the deadline hadsince been postponed from 6 August to 9 August).70 Thus, the Sussextroops were available to defend the coast against any attack by theArmada itself on, say, Portsmouth or Kent, but once this danger waspassed, they had sufficient time to march to London and join Hunsdon’sarmy.

The fact that the council was planning from the beginning to makeuse of these troops twice has not been evident to historians, possiblybecause the full text of the council’s instructions (which may haveclarified the point) is not readily available, and only a précis was enteredinto the register.71 However, a letter of 27 July to the Dorset deputylieutenants notes that ‘forasmuch . . . that the said Fleet was past thatcoast, they should not faiell to put in readiness with all speed and sendup to Stratford in the Bow the thowsand footmen . . . appointed by theirLordships’ letters’.72 It can also be seen that this arrangement not onlysatisfied the natural desire of the south coast counties to defend theirown homes, but also delayed the mobilization as long as possible, thusminimizing trouble and expense.73

Hunsdon’s army, then, was only intended to come into being after alanding had been made. This was certainly not the most desirable solu-tion, and was dictated mainly by financial and political considerations,but it was an effective way of making the best use of the availableresources, and it also allowed a degree of tactical flexibility.74 The councilrelied on the forces on the spot wherever the Spanish landed (this, itexpected, would be in Essex) to delay the enemy sufficiently to allow the

70 BL Harleian MS 703, ff. 53v.–54r. (Buckhurst to the JPs and militia captains of the rape ofLewes, 31 July 1588).71 As far as I am aware, no copy of the 23 July orders as sent to the relevant counties (Dorset,Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Sussex) survives.72 APC, xvi. 192–3.73 See the council’s responses to the concerns of Norfolk about leaving their county undefended:APC, xvi. 206, 209.74 The council register appears to be defective here: it records that the letters summoning the troopsrequired them to report to London by 6 August; however, the letter addressed to Northamptonshirerequired them to be there by 29 July. It is not clear why this was, and whether Northamptonshirewas unique in this respect. It would seem to make sense for counties with no coast to defend to gettheir troops to London as soon as possible, as in this case, but on the other hand, the council mayhave wished to save money by assembling troops as late as possible. Northamptonshire LieutenancyPapers and Other Documents 1580–1614, ed. J. Goring and J. Wake (Northamptonshire RecordSociety, xxvii, 1975) [hereafter Northants Lieutenancy Papers], pp. 60–1.



principal army, Hunsdon’s, to assemble. Flexibility was, indeed, the keyto the entire mobilization. The council had no qualms about changing itsorders to the county militia, or even stating straightforwardly that it hadnot quite decided what to do with them. The lord mayor of London, forexample, was told that the horse raised in the City were to be used eitherto guard the queen’s person or ‘to joyne with [the] Army which the Erleof Leycester, Lord Lieutenant, shall have char[ge] of for the defence ofthe Cytye’.75 On 1 August, when the council received news that theArmada had been sighted off the Norfolk coast, the troops from Norfolkand Suffolk were told to halt in their advance towards London or Essex‘untyll it may appere what course the said Fleete will take’; they weresubsequently diverted from London to Stratford or Tilbury.76 It alsoseems likely that, had they ever been called into battle, the relationshipbetween Leicester’s and Hunsdon’s armies would have been reasonablyfluid. Had Leicester’s troops performed well, no doubt more troopswould have been sent forward into Essex. Had Parma advanced towardsLondon, Leicester would perhaps have fallen back towards the city andmerged with Hunsdon’s army. Military planning is inevitably subject tochange in response to events. The decisive factor was not only the council’splanning, but also the capability of the structures it had put in place tocope with rapidly changing orders.

A clearer picture of the relationship between Hunsdon’s army and theforces in the counties also allows a better estimate to be made of the sizeof the defence forces available. Existing estimates have been subject to avariety of problems. It is not always recognized that the 27,000 troopsalong the south coast were not all discrete from the 27,150 ordered toform Hunsdon’s army: these men have often been counted in bothplaces, thus overestimating the total number of troops available.77 TheSussex troops, for example, are accounted for both as part of the 4,000Sussex troops on the south coast and as 2,500 troops of Hunsdon’s army,which they cannot have been, since Sussex only had 4,000 armed men intotal.78 On the other hand, 9,000 of the 10,000 London militia bands and1,000 from Middlesex are often left out of calculations, because orderswere never given for their mobilization.79

At the height of the alarm, the council had ordered the mobilizationof 38,150 men, with plans to set up armies of 11,000 in Essex, and 27,150at London; 6,000 further troops (at the council’s estimate) were ready inKent. To these can be added 10,000 further militia from London andMiddlesex, which could have been called up very quickly if necessary,and the forces of the nobility and clergy (nominally 5,331 foot and 2,169

75 APC, xvi. 180.76 APC, xvi. 209, 210, 217. ‘Armada Correspondence’, pp. 83–4.77 Fissel, English Warfare, p. 57. Nolan, ‘Muster of 1588’, 406–7.78 NA SP 12/213/37; APC, xvi. 195.79 APC, xvi. 202.

NEIL YOUNGER 347


horse), giving a total of 59,481 foot and 5,130 horse which were or couldquickly be called up.80

This figure is somewhat lower than some estimates (for example, the76,000 quoted by Ian Friel81), and clearly does not represent the totalnumber of troops available to defend against invasion. Most obviously,not all of the troops from the south coast militias were called up. Norwere any troops ever called up from Wales, the Marches, or the Northand adjacent counties (Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire,Nottinghamshire, and Lincolnshire), which were in readiness to respondto Spanish (or Scottish) attack there. More problematically, attempts togive definitive figures for the total defence forces founder on the vagariesof sixteenth-century administration: county muster certificates are almostinvariably unreliable, incomplete or inconsistent in their terminology.It is, therefore, impossible to give a definitive figure for the total numberof available troops. Virtually all of the troops came from the militia, andsince every able-bodied man between the ages of 16 and 60 was liable tomilitia service, the number of potential troops was in theory close toinexhaustible. In reality, the effective size of the militia was limited by theavailability of weaponry, and the organization of the men into compa-nies. It seems likely that, in the event of a prolonged campaign followingan invasion, existing militia units would have been augmented by what-ever other troops and equipment were available across the country oreven from the Netherlands or Ireland. The total number of armed militiamen, trained and untrained, in the country must have come to somethingin the region of 100,000 men, with a majority of these being (nominallyat least) trained.82 These would have been of widely varying quality, withthe best likely to have been those from the south, the home counties andEast Anglia, which were called up first; one would expect that the coun-ties would have sent their best men first. Any reinforcements called uplater would have been either poorer quality troops from this same area,or those from more remote areas which were in general poorer anyway.Thus, reinforcements would have been of progressively diminishing quality.

A picture of the national disposition of forces can be summarized asfollows. The trained bands in the coastal counties, from Cornwall toNorfolk, were ready to be the first line of resistance against any Spanishlanding in their localities; after any threat on their coast had passed, theyeither disbanded or were called up elsewhere. Leicester’s army in Essexperformed essentially the same function, but since the council believedthat the attack was most likely to come here, the Essex forces were aug-mented with trained bands from other counties, were kept on for a muchlonger period, and were, unlike the forces assembled in other coastal

80 This figure essentially agrees with that quoted in HMC Foljambe, pp. 57–8, although I add 1,000Middlesex militia and 400 from Huntingdonshire (for which, see above, n. 56).81 Friel, ‘Defence of England’, p. 126.82 Compiled from NA SP 12/210/42, a digest of the county muster certificates of April 1588, withmissing figures from NA SP 12/213/37.



counties, paid by the queen. The same applies to the forces under Leices-ter’s command in Kent. Finally, Hunsdon’s army would have defendedthe queen, capital and government from swift capture by the Spanish;this force was projected to be larger than Leicester’s on the first (23 July)mobilization, and even more so after the orders of 28 July, and wasclearly to be the main force in the event of a successful landing. The‘Tilbury’ army has always received the most attention, as early as thehistories of Camden and Stow, leading to an almost universal misdirec-tion of attention thither, but it can be seen that this is the result of essen-tially ephemeral factors. Most importantly, this army, unlike Hunsdon’s,actually came into being and was kept in existence long after other forceshad been disbanded, for strategically dubious reasons. It could thus bevisited quite easily from London, most notably of course by the queenon 8–9 August, but also by other ministers and leading figures. Thisbeing so, it is not surprising that the picture presented by the queen’s visitstuck in the memory of all who witnessed it.

Once it became evident that neither the Essex nor the London forceswere to be required to fight, the government carefully exploited them forpublic relations purposes. The queen’s visit to Tilbury was an extremelyeffective symbol of resistance to Spain, quickly becoming part of themythology of 1588. If it was indeed the case, as has been suggestedabove, that the troops reviewed at that gathering had not all been campingat Tilbury, this only underlines the extent to which the review was ahighly self-conscious propaganda performance. The troops supplied bythe nobility were adapted in a similar way: later in August, several noblemenand councillors put on reviews of their contingents before the queen andthe public – first Hatton, on 19 August, then Burghley, Leicester andothers, and lastly Essex on 26 August, whose review was followed byjousting. Although not nearly as well remembered as the Tilbury review,observers in London found them highly impressive.83

It remains to discuss the counties’ responses to the council’s mobiliza-tion orders, which is best characterized as mixed. There were manyreports of great enthusiasm: in Dorset, the gentry voluntarily upgradedtheir light horse to lances; Bedfordshire sent fifty more footmen thanwere required for Leicester’s army; Leicester reported a great deal of will-ingness in his Essex troops.84 On the other hand, there were variousreports of meanness and evasion: refusals to contribute in Sussex, reluc-tance in Middlesex; Hertfordshire gentry were accused of sending horsesinferior to those they had showed at musters.85 Indeed, the responsewas equally varied within counties: in Huntingdonshire, for example.86

This was the inevitable corollary of an amateur military force. Typically,

83 CSP Spanish 1587–1603, pp. 418–19. See also Burghley, Copy of a Letter (1588), pp. 25–6.84 NA SP 12/214/31; APC, xvi. 200. NA SP 12/213/38, quoted in Christy, ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Visit’,45.85 APC, xvi. 218, 219, 216; NA SP 12/214/69 & I.86 NA SP 12/214/14.

NEIL YOUNGER 349


some of the most critical reports concerned the dishonesty of captains.87

However, on the surviving evidence, the overall response can at least besaid to have been orderly and well organized.

Contrary to some accounts, the arrival of the council’s mobilizationorders did not necessarily require frantic urgency in the counties. For astart, the counties had had extensive advance warning of the crisis theywere facing. The council’s focus on preparation of the trained bands hadbeen unprecedentedly consistent since the beginning of 1584, with a reg-ular stream of orders building upon one another, along with demandsfor muster certificates and incentives such as the visit of centrally appointedmuster-masters. From mid-June 1588, the country had been effectivelyon amber alert: the council informed lord lieutenants on 15 June that theArmada was at sea and required troops to be in readiness, captains to bepresent, beacons to be readied, and so forth. On 18 June, the queen wroteto lord lieutenants, asking them to encourage the gentry to increase theircontributions towards the defence, and on 27 June, the council orderedlord lieutenants to have their troops in readiness.88 Therefore the mobili-zation orders of 23 July and afterwards will have come as no surprise tothe responsible officials. Indeed, many lieutenants had probably beenwarning their deputies about what was soon to be expected of them ontheir own initiative. Sir Christopher Hatton, for example, had writtenfour letters in mid-July to his deputies in Northamptonshire, urging themto have all things in readiness.89

The one part of the mobilization which was likely to have been veryhurried was the assembly of troops in the south coast counties in case ofa landing by the Armada. In the south and south-west, the news of thefleet’s sighting on 19 July evidently reached many people before thecouncil’s orders did. George Carey established his camp on the Isle ofWight on 22 July, before the council had received news of the Armada’sarrival.90 In the case of Wiltshire, the council dispatched Sir Henry Kny-vet, a leading county gentleman and deputy lieutenant, from court totake command of the 2,000 troops to be sent up from the county. He sentorders ahead of him for the troops to rendezvous at Marlborough on 28July. However, the other deputy lieutenant, Sir John Danvers, had heard‘credible advertisement of the Spanish Fleet being nere unto our coast’and acted on his own initiative, ordering mobilization of the countyforces. The county JPs met on 27 July to work out the details of themobilization, by which time the council’s orders of 23 July would havearrived.91

87 HMC Foljambe, pp. 61–2.88 APC, xvi. 137–8; the full text in HMC Foljambe, pp. 42–5.89 Northants Lieutenancy Papers, pp. 56–60.90 NA SP 12/213/40 I.91 Danvers’s letter must date from about 22 July. Long, ‘Wild Darell of Littlecote’, pp. 208–9.‘Longleat Papers, A. D. 1553–1588, VIII – Wiltshire Preparations against the Spanish Armada,A. D. 1588’, ed. J. E. Jackson, Wiltshire Archaeology and Natural History Magazine, xiv (1874),243–53, at 248–9.



Therefore in most cases, receipt of the mobilization orders would havebeen followed by several days of final preparations, and details of financeand arrangements were probably finalized only during this period. InGloucestershire, as in Wiltshire, there was a meeting of the county JPs,who agreed to raise a tax of £854 to cover the costs of the 1,500 menordered on 23 July; this was extended once the council’s orders of 28July, demanding a further 1,000 men, were received. On 30 July, theauthorities in the city of Gloucester (it is their book of musters whichrecords these details) held a muster to select 300 men as their contribu-tion to the contingent; their armour was selected and packed into cartsfor the journey the following day. The men reported to the countyrendezvous at Cirencester on 2 August, marched the following day toFairford, then on 4 August to Dorchester (east of Abingdon), where theywere reviewed by their lord lieutenant’s mother, ‘the old Lady Chandos’,at Ewelme. However, ‘before ix of the clock on that munday [5 August]tidinges came from Sir Henry Poole lyenge at Henly that he had receavedspeciall l[ett]res from the Pryvie Counsaile that all the captaines withtheir bands should returne back into their cuntries and discharge theirsouldiers.’92 Thus, although the Gloucester city band’s Armada cam-paign never got further than Oxfordshire, the response from the localauthorities seems impressive: the soldiers were selected from the bandwhich had been trained several times earlier in 1588, their armour hadbeen chosen and packed up for safe transport, they had been providedwith coats and wages, and they seem to have been on schedule to arriveat London by the appointed day. It is true that some bandsmen bribedtheir way out of the trained band, which hardly reflects well on the cap-tains, but the lord lieutenant, Lord Chandos, responded promptly bysending other men to make up the numbers.93

The Northamptonshire deputy lieutenants, normally some of the worstfoot-draggers in the country, also responded reasonably well. Althoughthe deputies had been hoping to get away with supplying only 400 soldiers,the council called up all 600 trained bandsmen on 23 July. Over the nextfew days there was a good deal of last-minute preparation. Althoughlittle armour or weaponry was purchased, some was ‘trimmed’, or repaired,and coats were bought for each man, at 15s each, a relatively generousallowance. The four bands of 150 men each received four or five daystraining, at Wellingborough, Oundle, Towcester and Daventry, costingthe county £200, plus ‘80 pounds of gunpowder for to practice by theway, as they marched towards London’.94 The men left Northampton on31 July, and arrived at Islington, where they entered the queen’s pay, on2 August.95

92 Gloucestershire Archives, GBR H 2/1, fos. 18r.–33r. That same day, 5 August, William Heydon,at Newmarket with his band of Norfolk trained bandsmen, en route for Tilbury, received orders toturn back (BL Add. MS 48591, fo. 44v.).93 Gloucestershire Archives, GBR H 2/1, fo. 24v.94 The Northamptonshire accounts are NA SP 12/214/32–3.95 They remained there in pay until 14 August. NA E 351/242, rot. 8r.

NEIL YOUNGER 351


As mentioned earlier, these were an exception in arriving at theirdestination, since the council was able to begin the demobilization beforemany troops reached London. Most of the troops for Hunsdon’s army,21,150 in all, were ordered to halt their advance on 3 August.96 Leicester’sforces proved more difficult to dispense with. On 5 August, since therewas ‘no apparaunt danger from th’enemie’, the council ordered Leicesterto reduce his army to 6,000, sending home troops from nearby countieswhich could quickly be recalled if necessary.97 Evidently he simply dis-obeyed, perhaps on account of the queen’s decision to visit the camp.Leicester knew of her decision to come by the morning of 5 August, andit took place on 8 and 9 August, during which there was a brief panicthat Parma might after all invade independently.98 On 14 August, Leices-ter was again told that the 16,500 men he still had in the field should bereduced to 6,000, from the more remote counties, keeping the horse onas well.99 Leicester remained reluctant; as late as 16 August, he wasgiving orders to the deputy lieutenants of Kent to mobilize 1,000 soldiersto replace others being sent home to the harvest.100 On 17 August, however,the council gave order that the camp be dissolved altogether, and thistime Leicester complied.101 It is not at all clear what the troops still incamp had been doing all this time.

Thus ended the English militia’s Armada campaign. In the light ofthis article’s reassessment of the events of the crisis, Parker’s critiqueof the English preparations appears overstated. The concentration ofdefence forces in Essex rather than Kent was not a matter of ignorancebut a considered response to new intelligence which minimized the riskof a surprise attack. The disagreement between Sir Thomas Scott andSir John Norreys over the disposition of forces in Kent is not sufficientevidence that there was serious confusion over strategy amongst theEnglish commanders: Scott was not a professional soldier, and he owedhis command more to his local influence in east Kent than his merits asa commander.102 Nor can it be accepted that there was confusion in thecouncil’s orders; the specific example cited is based on a misread source.103

The overall organization and management of the queen and council weremuch more impressive than has been argued. The council sat every day

96 APC, xvi. 215–16; ‘Armada Correspondence’, p. 86.97 APC, xvi. 221–2.98 NA SP 12/214/34, printed in Christy, ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Visit’, 47; BL Harleian MS 6994,

fo. 142r; ‘Armada Correspondence’, p. 87.99 APC, xvi. 234.

100 Staffordshire Record Office, D593/S/4/12/14.101 APC, xvi. 239. Bodleian Library, Oxford, St Amand MS 8, fo. 65r. (Leicester to Sir JohnNorreys, marshal of the camp, to dissolve the army, 18 July 1588). Wright, Queen Elizabeth,ii. 391–2 (Leicester to Burghley, 18 Aug. 1588).102 Parker, ‘If the Armada had Landed’, 364–5.103 Ibid. 365. Parker writes that the council ‘ordered all forces in Kent to move to the sea-shore toprevent a landing’, whereas this letter in fact ordered ‘the levies in Kent to be ready to move to anypart of the coast in order to prevent such a landing’ (Parker, ‘If the Armada had Landed’, 365 andn. 23, quoting Twysden Lieutenancy Papers, pp. 70–1, which is in any case misdated: see above, n. 37).



from 22 July to 5 August, coordinating virtually everything. The responseto the movement of the Armada, with men called up from the south-westand south coast once the danger had passed, was successful. It is truethat much of the detail seems to have been decided very late; theapproach seems to have been to get as many troops as possible toLondon and then work out exactly what to do with them. This certainlyallowed greater flexibility in disposing the troops, and whilst there waspotential for confusion, the relatively small numbers of men involvedmade this less of a risk. Furthermore, Parma’s operations would havebeen very much on the hoof too.

On a broader level, the crisis allows an assessment of the overall successof Elizabethan military policy in preparing the country to repel aninvasion. First of all, the fact that the trained bands existed at all can beregarded as a success; certainly Walsingham and Burghley were extremelyproud that they had caused so many men to be ‘reduced into bands andtrained . . . under captains and ensigns . . . a thing never put in executionin any of her Majesty’s predecessors’ times’.104 The command structuresset up by the council in the years prior to the Armada – the lieutenanciesin each county and the militia structures under their aegis – worked wellin the crisis. Even the slackest lieutenancy machineries, such as North-amptonshire’s, met the council’s demands. In many ways, the achieve-ment of the trained bands campaign was not military but organizational.Leaving aside for the moment their military prowess, the scheme ensuredthat there was a clear chain of command to relay the council’s ordersto the county trained bands’ captains and men. When called upon, thetroops would (and did) turn out with their weapons, under designatedleaders whom they knew, and assemble at the rendezvous points in areasonably orderly fashion. As Paul Hammer emphasizes, it was thegovernment’s confidence in ‘how efficiently the trained bands couldrespond’ which allowed them to take the risk of partial mobilization.105

This was indeed a success for the council’s efforts to create a network ofcommand based on the lieutenancies. It has also been noted that thecounties were well able to act on their own initiative, implementing theplans laid down in conjunction with military experts. Furthermore, it issignificant that there appears to have been no protest around the issueof the militias leaving their own counties, even though the militias from,for example, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire marching to join the army todefend the queen’s person must have been aware that they were leavingtheir homes undefended against any Spanish landing in the south-west.Certainly, then, the trained bands had their drawbacks, but they were,in Adams’s words ‘however flawed, . . . a precocious experiment in thecreation of a national system quite unparalleled on the Continent’.106

104 NA SP 12/206/2.105 Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, p. 147.106 S. Adams, ‘England and the World under the Tudors, 1485–1603’, in The Oxford IllustratedHistory of Tudor and Stuart Britain, ed. J. Morrill (Oxford, 1996, pbk edn., 2000), pp. 397–415, at p. 415.

NEIL YOUNGER 353


To some extent, this answers Parker’s point about the lateness of manyof the preparations, since, placing considerable confidence in the flexibilityand reliability of the lieutenancies, the council was able to organize thedefence mobilization in the very last-minute way demanded by the nationalfinances. The mobilization had to be tailored to the available resources,and it was: to have repelled an invasion at the cost of bankruptcy wouldhave been a pyrrhic victory, if the country was thereby unable to maintainthe navy against future attacks.

Perhaps the most vexed point concerns the effectiveness and moraleof the defenders. Clearly, an assessment of the trained bands’ militarycapability is difficult because they were never tested in battle, andsixteenth-century history offers few examples of citizen militias confront-ing trained soldiers from which might be extrapolated the outcome of anEnglish resistance to invasion. Despite elements of success in the trainedbands’ programmes, the council was never able to force the countyauthorities to implement sustained military training programmes effec-tively over a period of years. Although they would have had somerudiments of military discipline, it is doubtful whether many of thetroops were outstandingly well armed or trained; at the very least, thequality varied enormously. Perhaps crucially, few had experience of fac-ing an enemy. On the other hand, there must have been an admixture ofveterans of various wars, and there was a sizeable pool of officers withmilitary experience available to be used.107 As Parker rightly argues, how-ever, a crucial factor, should a successful landing have been made, wouldhave been the level of determination in the defence shown by ordinaryEnglishmen. Anecdotal evidence supports Parker’s own case that therewas a good degree of popular anti-Spanish sentiment at many levels ofsociety. Many of the nobility and gentry expressed great willingness tocontribute their services.108 Parker’s speculation over whether the Englishdefenders of English towns would be likely to betray them to the Spanish– in the same way as the Catholic Sir William Stanley betrayed theDutch Protestant town of Deventer – is hardly a direct comparison.109

One problem which may have become very serious in any prolongedcampaign was the shortage of weapons, particularly of more moderntypes. Throughout the period, the supply of weaponry appears to havebeen the principal limiting factor in the size of county trained bands: thecounties invariably certified far fewer sets of equipment than men to bearthem. In July 1588, the council had to dispatch 2,000 pikes and 2,000burgonets to the Essex trained bands, which would still not be enough,

107 On Leicester’s pool of captains ‘to attende the Armye for ymploymente if nede shall require’,see NA E 351/242, rot. 7d. Leicester also made efforts to replace the local gentry with experiencedcaptains as commanders of the county militias under his command: see NA SP 12/214/1.108 For example, CSPD 1581–90, pp. 516, 527.109 Parker, ‘If the Armada had Landed’, 362–4. There were of course Catholics in English towns aswell, although some care was taken, particularly in the south-east, to exclude them from the militia,for example by administering the oath of supremacy to trained bandsmen: Boynton, ElizabethanMilitia, p. 111.



apparently.110 At the height of the crisis, on 28 July, Hatton told SirRichard Knightley, one of his deputy lieutenants in Northamptonshire,that the council was contemplating forming auxiliary units of archers.111

There was also a widespread chronic shortage of powder.112 In thisrespect it is difficult to disagree that England was underprepared in wayswhich could have been remedied very easily.

It is impossible to be sure what would have happened had a successfullanding been made. In this context it is well worth remembering that theland forces were very much the poor relation of England’s defences: itwas the well-supplied, increasingly professionalized fleet which was Eng-land’s first line of defence. Not only had it provided England’s advancestrategy, as in the case of Drake’s 1587 voyage to Cadiz, which success-fully prevented the Armada sailing that year, but its strategy of hustlingthe Armada down the Channel was a great success: in Howard’s words,they ‘course[d] the enemy as that they shall have no leisure to land’.113 AsLeicester asked, at the very height of the crisis, ‘If [the queen’s] navy hadnot been strong and abroad, as it is . . . what case had herself and herwhole realm been in by this time?’114

110 APC, xvi. 198.111 Northants Lieutenancy Papers, p. 61.112 ‘Armada Correspondence’, pp. 81–2.113 ‘Armada Correspondence’, p. 78 (Howard to Sussex, 22 July 1588). See also p. 81, where Walsinghamrefers to ‘the Lord Admiral being so strong at the seas upon their back, [that] they will never offerto land’ on the south coast.114 NA SP 12/213/38.