This article was compiled by my brother Chris and transcribed by me for use on my web site. I have no problem if anyone wants to link to it or use it on their own website as long as they give credit and say where they got it from.
"STORMY SEAS UNKNOWN TO US" or "THIS DAY OF OUR GREAT PERIL"
Excerpted from "Full Fathom Five: Wrecks of the Spanish Armada", by Colin Martin and "The Voyage of the Armada: the Spanish Story", by David Howarth. (Dates are Gregorian which is ten days earlier than our Julian Calendar).
El Gran Grifon was a 650 ton and 38 gun urca from the Hanseatic League city of Rostock on the Baltic coast and derived its name from the port’s heraldic emblem of a golden griffin. El Gran Grifon should not be confused for a lesser ship in the armada known as simply the Grifon. Baltic urcas were sturdily built for cargo rather than speed or maneuverability and had as their main disadvantage the inability to sail close to the wind. El Gran Griffon played a considerable part in supplying the Armada beginning as early as June, 1586 where it carried products secretly via the long ‘north-about’ route around Scotland. Rostock allied with Spain as did most of the largely Catholic Hanseatic League due to religious and economic isolation since the Reformation. In the final muster at Lisbon on May 28, 1588 the Eighth Squadron was composed of twenty-three such Baltic urcas with a total tonnage of more than 10,000 tons (largest command in the fleet) and El Gran Griffon was the flagship of these supply and troop transports under the command of Castilian Captain-General Juan Gomez de Medina, Governor of the port of Cadiz (not to be confused with the overall armada commander, the Duke of Medina Sidonia). He had forty-three mariners on board and 243 soldiers belonging to the tercio of Nicolas de Isla and three of their company officers Patricio de Antolinez, Pedor Hurtado de Corcuera, and Esteban de Legorreta. There was also one aventurero aboard named Vasco de Lago. Spain’s great poet and playwright Lopez de la Vega who sailed with the Armada wrote:
"Famous floating army of many standards
Defenders all of the red-crossed crusade
Masts of the Faith, from which there streams
A fine white pennon at each yard’s end"
Travelling from Lisbon the Armada was dispersed by storms and El Gran Grifon and the Eighth Squadron weren’t able to shelter at Corunna with the main fleet and so proceeded through the storm to the next rendezvous point. They did not straggle back to the main fleet at Corunna until July 6 ‘smelling of England’ as Juan Martinez de Recalde put it. They had cruised of the Scillies for a fortnight in late June, where they had taken a couple of prizes, and would have taken others had not an accidental fire broken out on board one of the hulks during the action. When the Armada finally shook itself into a crescent battle formation of Land’s End, ready for its advance up Channel, the urcas were shepherded into the security of the hollow for as Medina’s General Instructions stated ‘ that great care and vigilance is to be exercised to keep the squadron of hulks always in the midst of the fleet...’
As it turns out the only urca to engage the enemy against orders in a week-long series of battles was the El Gran Grifon. It is said Medina was insulted by a supply ship posting and throughout the campaign he sought out skirmishes. On August 2nd off Portland, according to a witness aboard a Portuguese galleon, ‘Juan Martinez de Recalde came entering in from the south-east, and with him and Juan Gomez de Medina and other ships we came so nigh (to the enemy) that with one piece of cast iron we shot two bullets into the Vice-Admiral of the English (Sir John Hawkins), and there was great shot of ordnance....’ When dawn had broke August 3rd off the Isle of Wight the El Gran Grifon could again be seen straggling from her station and towards the fleet'’ exposed right wing. The Royal English Navy crowded on sail to cut her off and Recalde in the San Juan de Portugal came to her defence as did some Biscayans. The English under the lead of Francis Drake’s Revenge got there first and with terrifying ease glided abeam the wallowing Grifon, gave her a devastating broadside at close range, neatly came about and gave her another, then crossed her stern and raked her at half musket shot at about fifty yards. The El Gran Grifon sustained 70 shots and about that many killed or wounded as well. Beset on all sides with Drake’s Revenge outgunning here by three times. The English did not board as 200 angry and trained soldiers aboard the El Gran Grifon wanted nothing less than to come to pike’s length. Recalde’s column came into action only a few minutes later but the El Gran Grifon was disabled and caught in the middle of an engagement that occupied the whole right rear of the Armada. She was towed out by galleasses to the security of the main fleet for emergency repairs and despite her damage and casualties (highest in the Armada) fought in the rearguard action off Gravelines and kept up to the Armada during the first leg of the ‘north-about’ voyage when the winds were favourable.
The English followed for four days until reaching 55 degrees latitude (parallel with Newcastle) where they left two fast pinnaces to shadow and report on the Armada while they turned for port at the Firth of Forth for water and provisions. At about August 20th the fleet took up a westerly course to round the north of Scotland and passed between North Ronaldsay and Fair Isle, where Scottish fishermen reported a ‘very great fleet of monstrous ships, being about 100 in number’. By this time El Gran Grifon, Barca de Amburg, Castillo Negro and La Trinidad Valencara had not been seen and were struggling south-west against headwinds for the next twelve days. They had already put everyone on starvation rations of half a pound of biscuit, a pint of water and a half litre of wine a day and to save water jettisoned the artillery’s horses and mules. On September 1, Barca de Amburg’s seams and pumps had caused her to founder and after firing a gun in distress her company of 250 was transferred to the Grifon and Valecera just before she sank. On September 4th, off the north-west coast of Ireland, Castillo Negro vanished in the night and was never heard from again, while La Trinindad Valencera slipped away and was later wrecked September 18th in Kinnagoe Bay, Donegal where the survivors were later slaughtered at Dun an Oir by the forces of Lord Deputy, Grey of Wilton (with Walther Raleigh in attendance) leaving the El Gran Grifon damaged, cramped and alone in stormy seas unknown.
The Grifon beat south-west into the Atlantic until the night of September 7 when a great storm caused her seams to open up as much as a hand’s breadth apart and forced her to float with the wind and sea astern. A diarist, either Gomez de Medina himself or the priest Seignour Serrano, records they ran northwards reaching St. Kilda at about 37.5 degrees latitude on September 10. The wind turned north-east allowing them to turn back ‘towards our dear Spain’ until September 13 when at latitude with Galway Bay, well down the coast of Ireland it backed once more into the south-west quarter:
‘We turned back and sailed for three days more to the latitude we had been in before. But when we got there, we were fit only to die, for the wind was so strong and the sea so wild that the waves mounted to the skies, knocking the ship about so that the men were all exhausted, and yet unable to keep down the water that leaked through our gaping seams. If we had not had the wind astern we could not have kept afloat at all. But by God’s mercy during the next two days the weather moderated, and we were able to patch up some of the leaks with ox-hides and planks. And so we ran until 23rd September, when the wind rose against us, and we decided to turn back again and try to reach Scotland. On the 25th we sighted some islands which the pilots said were Scottish (Outer Hebrides). And so we sailed till the 26th to the north-east in search of land. On that day we sighted some other islands which we tried to avoid so as not to be lost (N. Orkneys). The weather then got so strong that our poor repairs were all undone, and we had to keep both pumps always going to keep the water down. So we decided to sail for the first Scottish land even if we had to run the hulk ashore. Late in the afternoon of the 26th we were troubled to see an island to windward of us (Westray, or Papa Westray), for it was getting darker and we feared to be among islands in the dark. We had hoped we were free of them. During the night we gave ourselves up for lost, for the seas ran mountains high, and the rain fell in torrents. At two in the morning we saw an island right ahead of us (North part of Sanday) which as may be supposed, filled us with consternation after all the tribulation we had passed through.’
On the pitch dark night of October 26th they were lost in the Orkney Islands and in danger of running aground when the aurora borealis revealed breakers on rocky shores all around:
‘But God in His mercy at that moment sent us a sudden gleam of light through the dark night, and so enabled us to avoid the danger. The blackness fell as dense as before. Two hours afterwards another island loomed up before us, so close that it seemed impossible to weather it. But God came to our aid as usual, and sent a move vivid gleam than before. It was so bright that I asked whether it was daylight. This was the Isle of Cream (North Ronaldsay), where we decided to bring up if we could not reach Scotland, though we did not recognize it until later as we had run further than we thought. At dawn, two hours later, we discovered it, and in fear of the heavy sea we tried to get near the island again, but after trying for four hours we found it impossible. The sea kept giving us such dreadful blows, that truly our one thought was that our lives were ended, and each one of us reconciled himself to God as well as he could, and prepared for the long journey that seemed inevitable. As to force the hulk any more would only have ended it and our lives the sooner, we determined to cease our efforts. The poor soldiers, too, lost all spirit to work at the pumps. The two companies – 230 men in all, and 40 we had taken from the other ship, had pumped incessantly and worked with buckets, but the water still increased, till there were thirteen spans over the carlings (as they call them) and all efforts to reduce it an inch. So we gave way to despair, and each one of us called upon the Virgin Mary to be our intermediary in so bitter a pass; and we looked towards the land with full eyes and hearts, as the reader may imagine. And God send that he may be able to imagine the smallest part of what it was like, for after all there is a great difference between those who suffer and those who look upon suffering from afar off. At last – when we thought all hope gone, except through God and His holy Mother, who never fails those who call upon him – at two o’clock in the afternoon we sighted an island ahead of us. This was Fair Isle, where we arrived at sunset, much consoled, though we saw we should still have to suffer. But anything was better than drinking salt water. We anchored in a sheltered spot we found, this day of our great peril, 27th September, 1588.’
Set in the midst of the unpredictable tidal cross-currents of the Atlantic-North Sea and the 600 foot cliffs of the three mile long Fair Isle, El Gran Grifon found its way through the Atlantic rollers of a gale around Point Saider to Swartz Geo Inlet, the only sheltered haven to be found on the island, where it dropped anchor at dusk. On the morning of September 28 an attempt to run the Grifon aground on the gently sloping pebble beach failed and the ship became wedged in the ‘Kist O’ Stoodle’ fissure of the narrow cave ending geo of Stromshellier. Stromshellier is derived from the Norse ‘Cave of the Tide-Race’ between Sunburgh Roost, Sunburgh Head and Fair Isle and a worse place could not be imagined with its cliffs overhanging as high as 150 feet, jagged reefs on either side, a spine like outcrop running down the middle and a sea bed of shallow rock and sheer gullies. Island tradition recounts how all 300 Spaniards survived the wreck by climbing up the masts and over the yards which leaned against the 70 foot cliff ‘Cup O’ Skairharis’.
In 1593 the notorious Earl Patrick of Orkney teamed with William Irvine of Sebay to salvage the wreck, but it was not until 1728 that two bronze guns were recovered and not until 1970 that the wreck’s other remains were found by divers. Local Orkney belief had it that the ship’s hull turned to stone and was covered with seaweed. Fair Isle is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and administered by Lerwick County Museum, Shetland County Council, William.
A Scotsman wrote ‘they saved their treasure and are come hither unspoiled’ and another tradition relates that when the Spaniards were seen walking over the hummock to the crofts with their gleaming breastplates and morion, the locals thought that they were the Angels of Heavenly Host and that the Day of Judgement had arrived. The islanders were of Norse origin who had lived under Scottish rule for only a century and resented it. The diarist continues:
‘We found the island peopled by seventeen households in huts, more like hovels than anything else. They are savage people, whose usual food is fish, without bread, except for a few barley-meal bannocks cooked over the embers of a fuel they use, which they make or extract from the earth and call turf. They have some cattle, quite enough for themselves, for they rarely eat meat. They depend mainly upon the milk and butter from their cows using their sheeps’ wool principally for clothing. They are very dirty people, neither Christians nor altogether heretics. It is true they confess that the doctrine that once a year is preached to them by people sent from another island, nine leagues off, is not good, but they say they dare not contradict it, which is a pity. Three hundred men of us landed on the island, but could save none of our provisions. From that day, 28th September, till 14th November, we lost fifty of our men – most of them dying of hunger – amongst others the master and mate of the hulk. We had decided to send a messenger to the governor (Shetland) to beg some boats to carry us to Scotland to seek rescue, but the weather was so heavy that we could not send until 27th October, when the weather was fine, and they went. They have not yet returned in consequence of the violence of the sea.’
Robert Meteith, an Orkney man writing in 1633 put it this way:
‘...the Spaniards at first eating up all they could find, not only cattle, sheep, fishes and fowls, but also horses... the Islanders in the night carried off their beasts and victual to places in the isle where the Spaniards might not find them: the officers also strictly commanded the soldiers to take nothing but what they paid for, which they did very largely, so that the people were not great losers by them, having got a great many Spanish reals for the victuals they gave them. But now the people fearing a famine among themselves kept up their victuals from the Spaniards; thus all supply from the isle failing them they took up their own bread (which they had preserved) which being dipped in fish oil they did eat, which also being spent it came to pass that many of them died of hunger, and the rest were so weakened, that one or two of the islanders finding a few of them together could easily throw them over the cliffs, by which many of them died.’
Another tradition told to Robert Stuart Bruce of Symbister by Walter Traill Dennison of Orkney (who has a rapier given to the head of the family by an officer of the wreck) tells of a number of Spaniards being killed by the Islanders, who cased the heavy flagstone roof of their large turf hut to fall in on them. Yet another story states that the Spaniards were ‘pitten over da bauks’, that is they were lured to an open-air feast at the foot of the deep geo where they were cut off and drowned by the incoming tide. Facts do not bear out the tales of murder and those who died of hunger are buried in a recently exposed mass grave now called ‘the Spainnarts Graves’. Moreover the two sides both acted remarkably humane as the heavily armed Spaniards did not take the island by force and the islanders shared whatever they had in way of shelter, stores, boats, etc. To this day a Griffon can be found in the woolen designs of the island.
In mid November most of the Spaniards were rescued with Gomez de Medina as ‘notice came to Andrew Umphrey of Burra (in Shetland) who, having a ship of his own, instantly went to the Isle and brought them to Shetland’ where they were ‘suffered to come to land, and lie all together, to the number of thirteen score, for the most part young beardless men, sillie, trauchled and hungered, to which kail, porridge and fish were given...’ Among those rescued were Captains de Antolinez, de Legoretta, de Lufera, Mauritio (Maurice Desmond, relation of Sir John Desmond who led Kerry revolt against the English in Ireland), Thomas Desmond, and Irishman named Robert Aspolle (probably and aventureros) and a priest called Seignour Serrano. There is also a Shetland tradition that relates of another unknown armada ship being wrecked there which is strengthened by a marginal note of Lord Burghley’s on September 29 which speaks of two ships being lost in Shetland. Its men as the story goes were imprisoned for safety’s sake on a very small islet called Kirkholm, not far from Scalloway, the ancient capital. El Gran Grifon’s crew built themselves huts on the mainland of Shetland which have since disappeared under the plough, but those on Kirkholm still stand as a long row of very small huts with one larger one in the middle of them with a rounded end like the apse of a church which is either a Spanish relic or even older from the monks of St. Columba. They have not been excavated yet. Of the 30,000 men and 130 ships of the Armada only a handful of ships and a few thousand men survived to ever see Spain again.