were made to take off their crews, but these failed,
"for the sea was so high that nothing could be done, nor could the damage
be repaired which the flagship had suffered from great shot, whereby she
was in danger of being lost." This talk of rough seas shows that, brave
though he undoubtedly was in battle, the Duke had the landsman's
exaggerated alarm at the choppy waves of the Channel, and regarded as a
gale and a storm what a sailor would call fine weather with a bit of a
breeze. None of the English commanders thought that there was a high sea
that summer afternoon.

In the night it blew somewhat harder from the north-west, and as the early
dawn came it was seen that the Armada was in a perilous position. The
galleons, many of them with badly damaged spars and rigging, many more
without anchors at their cat-heads ready to bring them up, were being
forced nearer and nearer to the low sandy shores that were marked only by
the white foam of the breakers, and the leadsmen were giving warning that
the keels were already dangerously near to the shelving bottom along the
outlying fringe of shoals. The English ships, with plenty of sea-room,
looked on without closing in to attack. Little ammunition was left, and
Howard and his captains were not going to waste good powder and shot on
ships that seemed doomed to hopeless destruction. Some of Medina-Sidonia's
captains proposed that he should show the white flag and obtain the help of
the English to tow the endangered vessels off the lee shore, but he refused
to hear of such base surrender, and told them he was prepared for death. He
tells in his journal of the day how a sudden change of the wind saved the
fleet:--

"The enemy held aloof, seeing that our Armada must be lost. The
pilots on board the flagship--men of experience of that
coast--told the Duke at this time that it was not possible to
save a single ship of the Armada; for that with the wind as it
was in the north-west, they must all needs go on the banks of
Zeeland; that God alone could prevent it. Being in this peril
and without any remedy, God was pleased to change the wind to
west-south-west, whereby the fleet stood towards the north
without hurt to any ship."

The deliverance was not quite as complete as the Duke supposed. Far astern
the great "San Mateo" had grounded on the shoals "between Ostend and
Sluys." Next day three English ships came to take her, but the Spaniards,
no