rtain number of guns for her protection, but such guns were mostly of
small calibre and short range.

[Illustration: THE "GREAT ARMADA" ENTERING THE CHANNEL
_From the drawing by W. H. Overend_]

The largest galleons were in the armada of the Levant. The flagship, "La
Regazona," commanded by Martin de Bertendona, was the biggest ship in the
whole fleet, a great vessel of 1249 tons. But she only mounted 30 guns,
mostly light pieces. Compare this with the armament of the galleasses,
and one sees the difference between ships built for war and galleons that
were primarily traders. The largest of the four galleasses was only of 264
tons, the smallest 169, but each of the four mounted 50 guns. In all the
six armadas of galleons there were only seven ships of over a thousand
tons. There were fourteen more of over 800, and a considerable number of
under 500 tons. But the galleon looked larger than she really was. Such
ships had high bulwarks and towering fore and stern castles, and they
appear to have been over-rigged with huge masts and heavy yards. A galleon
under full sail must have been a splendid sight, the bows and stern and the
tall "castles" tricked out with carving, gold and colour. Great lanterns
were fixed on the poop. The sails were not dull stretches of canvas, but
bright with colour, for woven into or embroidered on them there were huge
coats-of-arms, or brilliantly coloured crosses, and even pictures of the
saints with gilded haloes. From the mastheads fluttered pennons thirty or
forty feet long, and flagstaffs displayed not only the broad standard of
the Lions and Castles of Spain, but also the banners of nobles and knights
who were serving on board.

But the tall ship, with her proud display of gold and colour, was more
splendid than formidable, and the Elizabethan seamen had soon realized the
fact. Built originally for the more equable weather of the trade-wind
region in the South Atlantic, she was not so well fitted for the wilder
seas and changing winds of the North. She was essentially an unhandy ship.
In bad weather she rolled heavily, and her heavy masts and spars and high
upper works strained the whole structure, so that she was soon leaking
badly. With the wind abeam and blowing hard, her tall sides and towering
castles were like sails that could not be reefed, a resisting surface that
complicated all manoeuvres. The guns that looked out from her port-holes
were mostly small cannon, many of them