Short History Of... - The Spanish Armada

Episode Date: August 21, 2022

The defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English navy is often recounted as a ‘David and Goliath’ tale in which one tiny country overcame a huge and formidable empire. It secured the continuance of Protestant rule in England and was a defining moment in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. But why did this confrontation ever take place? Was England’s success due entirely to its naval prowess, or did other factors play a part? And could the outcome have easily been drastically different? This is a Short History of the Spanish Armada. Written by David Jackson. With thanks to Geoffrey Parker, Professor of History at Ohio State University, and co-author of Armada: The Spanish Enterprise and England’s Deliverance in 1588. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is dawn on July the 19th, 1588. Up in the crow's nest of a lone patrol ship off the coast of Cornwall, a sailor peers through the swirling morning mist. He's trying to make something out in the distance towards the Silly Isles. Within a few minutes, what begins as just a dot spreads out until it becomes a collection of recognizable shapes. It is a fleet of ships, dozens of them. Their pointed wooden prows sit high on the water, and their masts are topped with long red and yellow banners. Within minutes, the captain is on the deck.

He confirms the sighting, and knowing there is no time to lose, he orders every man to action. A few miles north, on Cornwall's Lizard Point, the most southerly location of mainland England, is a small, beehive-shaped hut fashioned from local stone. In the doorway of this primitive structure, a watchman stares out across the wild sea. Around him, rabbits bound through the long grass, while gulls swoop and cry overhead.

The watchman studies the English ship near the horizon with some concern. There has been much naval activity in these waters lately, but this particular ship is acting oddly. It is racing at full pelt eastwards, coming closer to shore than is usual. Then, the boom of the ship's cannon tells the watchman everything he needs to know. The ship is not attacking. The volley doesn't even contain any shot. It's a signal, one that cannot fail to be detected as the ship races towards Plymouth Harbour.

Though it will soon be out of sight, the watchman knows the vessel is carrying a message that it will pass to the commanders of the English fleet. From there, men on horseback will carry the precious information to London. But the watchman has his own method of communication. It is cruder, but it is faster. Hurrying back to the hut, he climbs a wooden ladder through a hole in the roof. Once on top, he ignites baskets set high on a pole. The baskets contain gorse, broom, and rope soaked in pitch that

will continue to burn for hours. The fire and smoke can be seen instantly for many miles. Just moments later, the watchman sees the beacon light up at the next watchpoint. Beyond that, another fire is lit, and another, the first links in a chain that continues right along the south coast and then upwards towards London. Within hours, word reaches the ear of Queen Elizabeth I that her fears have finally been realized. What the lonely watchman has alerted her to is the approach of her greatest enemy. A vast fleet of ships, about 130 in all. A fleet that appears to be on course to invade England.

The Spanish Armada is coming. The Spanish Armada is coming. The fight against the Spanish Armada was a pivotal moment in English history. It is often seen as evidence of the superiority of the English Navy at the time. Sir Francis Drake, one of its key players, has been mythologized for his brutal decisiveness and daring do. But how much of the English success was down to sheer good fortune? What led England and Spain to such hostility? Was Drake really the virtuous hero? And what difference might it have made if he and the Queen's Navy had failed to live up to

their formidable reputations? I'm John Hopkins, and this is A Short History of the Spanish Armada. The 16th century is a time of intense religious tension in England. Determined to undo the changes made in the Reformation by her father, Henry VIII, the Catholic Mary I begins a bloody campaign against the Protestants. During her five-year reign from 1553, hundreds are burned at the stake. To cement her position further, Mary marries the Catholic Philip II of Spain, head of the most powerful empire in the world. She also imprisons her Protestant sister Elizabeth, next in line to the throne. next in line to the throne. When rumors surface that Mary is about to produce an heir,

the Protestants fear that their cause is lost forever. But Mary does not give birth, and instead dies from ovarian cancer at the age of 42. Once again, the religious tide turns as the crown passes to Elizabeth I. She makes worship in the Church of England compulsory and executes her Catholic cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. In an attempt to retain some semblance of Catholic control over England, the widowed

Philip II proposes marriage to his sister-in-law Elizabeth, but she rebuffs him. The stakes are raised when Pope Pius V excommunicates Elizabeth in 1570, authorizing Catholics to depose or even kill her. This gives Philip II the excuse he needs to remove Elizabeth from power. A year later, he is offered exactly that opportunity. Geoffrey Parker is professor of history at Ohio State University and co-author of Armada, the Spanish Enterprise and England's Deliverance in 1588. The turning point comes in 1571 when a papal agent called Roberto Ridolfi puts together a plot which will depose Elizabeth. And in Ridolfi's version, she'll be killed.

And the king says, yes, great idea. Let's do it. I will give you troops. I will give you treasure. Let's go ahead. And Elizabeth finds out. You treasure, let's go ahead. And Elizabeth finds out.

She may not be able to read the documents as we can, but she has enough intelligence to know that Philip II has tried to kill her and depose her. And she really has no time for him after that. Relations between the two countries at this time are not helped by the exploits of a certain Francis Drake. Born the first child of a Devon farmer, Drake becomes a sailor in his teens, alongside his wealthy cousin John Hawkins, who is 12 years his senior. Drake accompanies Hawkins on voyages to Sierra Leone in the 1560s, where they are involved in enslaving around 1,200 Africans and killing thousands more.

It's a time when the Spanish and Portuguese regard the lucrative slave trade as their monopoly. Hawkins and Drake become very successful and very wealthy. After they turn their hand to piracy, attacking and plundering Spanish ships and settlements, Drake in particular gains increasing notoriety. To the Spanish, he becomes known as El Draque, the dragon. Philip II puts a price on his head of 20,000 ducats, dead or alive. To Queen Elizabeth, however, Drake is a hero. So much so that she wants him to continue his attacks on the Spanish while becoming the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. Our man Drake. What an interesting figure. And even more interesting is that he's probably more of a celebrity in Spain than he is in England until the 1580s. and says to him, I want you to sail around the world taking Spanish treasure. And she says to him, you know, if you ever, ever say what you're going to do,

I will have your head. So off he goes. Three years later, he comes back again with an enormous amount of treasure. And Elizabeth gives him a knighthood on the deck of his own ship. And from that point on, she starts calling him Drake, which is among the royal family is a real sign of intimacy. When you get to surname terms, you've really made it. Now here is a man who's just stolen a hundred pounds of gold and thousands of pounds of silver and lots of other

high value treasure from the Spaniards. And to knight him on the deck of his own ship is a real insult to Spain. Over the next few years, with the full backing of his queen, Drake ramps up his antagonism of the Spanish. Things come to a head in 1585 when Drake lands in Galicia, the northwestern corner of Spain. There he and his men sack churches, kidnap priests for ransom and desecrate sacred ground before heading off to the Caribbean to inflict further damage. Horrified, the ambassadors of the court of Spain advise the king that this is something

that cannot be overlooked. In the royal palace outside Madrid, in poor health, Philip II decides he must attack England. After listening to advice from both naval and army commanders, he hatches a plan that he believes combines the best of both worlds. First, he will assemble a huge fleet of warships and support vessels that will set sail from Lisbon, which has been under Spanish control since Philip annexed Portugal in 1580. These forces should then rendezvous with an additional army of 30,000 troops that will set off from their current position in the Spanish Netherlands, and then they will jointly invade England. They will jointly invade England.

At first sight, it looks crazy, doesn't it? I mean, the plan Philip devises, and he does devise it himself with very little advice from anybody else. The plan of sending a fleet, a very large fleet from Lisbon, to meet up with a very large army in Flanders, a thousand sea miles away in the Age of Sail. And that is the prelude, the unavoidable prelude to invading England, looks really dumb. The funny thing is, Philip has tried it before and it's worked. But the logistics of it work really well. Unsurprisingly, an enterprise on such a scale doesn't go unnoticed by Elizabeth and her spies. Once again, Drake is assigned to be the thorn in Philip's side.

In 1587, Drake attacks Spanish naval forces moored at the Bay of Cadiz near Spain's southernmost tip, destroying much of the fleet there and capturing many of its provisions. It delays preparations for the Armada attack by at least a year. The incident goes down as the singeing of the King of Spain's beard, named after Drake's boast about his achievement. Despite this setback, Philip eventually assembles his armada, the Spanish word for Navy or fleet. It includes a number of ships

seized in the takeover of Portugal, including its impressive galleons. The king appoints the Duke of Medina Sidonia to lead it, but the Duke, who has no naval combat experience, is reluctant, to say the least. He goes so far as to write a letter turning down the appointment, but Philip's courtiers prevent its delivery. It is not wise, they advise the Duke, to refuse the King. Medina Sidonia is the perfect choice for two reasons. Number one, he is a Grandi of Spain. He is rich.

He is respected. He has a lot of land. And number two and more important, he has a talent for administration. So he goes to Lisbon and in two months he gets the Armada to see 130 sailing ships, or propel ships, a remarkable collection of disparate units. And he licks them into shape and he goes around and does it himself. He's jumping into these gondolas and going around the fleet and barking orders, you know, do this, do that, get yourself down to the mouth of the takers.

And 130 ships, he gets them to see there's not one ship that fails to make it when medina sidonia first arrives in lisbon he discovers that none of the ships have maps of the channel he puts his administrative talent into action and immediately orders 85 copies of the relevant charts to be made and distributed, if any ship gets separated from the fleet, it will know where it is and where it should go next. He also commandeers a printing press to mass-produce copies of the orders to be given to each ship. And so, at the end of May in 1588, the Armada begins its lengthy northward journey towards the English Channel. It is not until the 19th of July that it is spotted off the coast of Cornwall, in a particular

crescent arrangement approximately two miles wide. It is one of the largest and most formidable battle formations ever seen. A lot of people have been puzzled by the decision of the Armada to deploy in a crescent shape. And it's not an accident. If you look at drawings of the fleets at Lepanto, the biggest naval battle of the 16th century until the Armada, all the galleys are drawn up in a crescent. And the reason for that is the galley has its guns at the front, not on the sides. It's rather like a fighter aircraft. In order to fire its guns, it has five very large guns at the front. It has to maneuver the whole ship until it's pointing at the target. So think of it as a

fighter. And Medina Sidonia clearly thinks of his armada ships, sailing ships. He does have four galleys. He has four very large galleys called galleasses. So the way to maximize the firepower is to make sure every ship can shoot forward so that the horns, as they're called, or the wings, is the way to do that. It also has the advantage that when the armada advances, all the ships can be there and the horns will trail forward. But if the English attack from the back, then it's easy, they just trail back. And that's his battle tactic. And it works reasonably well. There is a story, probably apocryphal, that when word reaches Drake that the Armada is on its way, he insists on finishing his game of bowls before leaping into action. In reality, when the

Armada is first spotted, winds and incoming tides prevent the English ships from setting sail from Plymouth Harbour. If Drake is indeed playing bowls, he would be right to assume he has plenty of time to complete his game. While the English ships are unable to move, Medina Sidonia is advised by his officers to attack. The Duke ignores them, reminding them of the King's orders. The invasion must not take place before they have joined with the additional troops from the Netherlands, and so the armada bides its time. When the tide eventually turns, the English fleet sets off to confront the armada. It is commanded by Lord Howard of Effingham, with Drake as the vice-admiral. A point decisively in the fleet's favour in this

first engagement is that it manages to gain what is called the weather gauge. The disadvantage of a sailing ship is that it really only can go in a certain number of directions, especially in the 16th century when they haven't worked out all the clever tactics of riggings that modern yachts have got. So you can't sail straight into the wind. So to have the enemy in front of you when you have the wind behind you is an enormous advantage. And this is how it works on the day on which the Armada comes into view, which is the 21st of July, 1588.

into view, which is the 21st of July, 1588. Howard does an extraordinarily daring maneuver. He doesn't know that the Armada has taken in sail that night, but he just takes the risk of dividing his fleet and sending Drake with a smallish detachment to go along the coast so it will get behind the armada and he sails right across the front of the armada itself and joins drake on the other side so when dawn breaks he is there behind the spanish fleet so with the weather gate with the wind behind him he can choose when to sail in and attack the Spaniards and then to come out again, and they can do nothing against him. Another key factor in this, and later engagements, is the differences between the ships used by the two countries. The Spanish vessels are huge, each one capable of carrying four to five hundred troops.

The English, on the other hand, have opted for what is termed a race-built design. Their ships are narrower, faster and more maneuverable, with better sail plans to maximize speed. In addition, a higher proportion of the weight of the ship is devoted to artillery. There are heavy cannon not only at the prow and stern, but also along the sides. These differences in design also impact on the nature of the conflicts and the tactics used. So what happens when the English ships meet the Armada is they can come up close because of their better sail plan and their speed, fire their artillery and pull off again. The Spaniards are counting on the fact that they'll be able to get close to the English ships

and with the 400 or 500 soldiers aboard each ship, they'll be able to board and they will prevail. What they don't realize is that the English have a method of avoiding that. They can come in very close, fire off all their guns and pull away again to reload them. And the Spaniards never get close.

Although no ships are destroyed by the direct actions of the other side, the gunpowder magazine on one of the Spanish ships blows up, killing many on board. Another vessel, the Rosario, collides with its neighbors and has to be abandoned. But Drake's not one to let the chance of free supplies go to waste. At the time, he's supposed to be guiding the English fleet with the aid of a lantern at the stern of his ship, the Revenge. But when he learns of the fate of the Rosario, his mercenary nature gets the better of him. He extinguishes the lantern and races off to plunder the enemy ship,

leaving the remainder of the fleet with no visual guidance and causing them to lose formation. A further engagement takes place near Portland, almost a hundred miles east of Plymouth, on July the 23rd. takes place near Portland, almost a hundred miles east of Plymouth, on July the 23rd. This time, the Spanish gain the weather gauge and attempt to close in on their enemy and board them. But once again, they're outmaneuvered by the quicker-moving English fleet. Now Medina Sidonia moves further east again, into the strait between the Isle of Wight and the English mainland known as the Solent. There, he waits for news from the Duke of Parma about the reinforcements from the Netherlands. What seems to have been overlooked in Philip's grand attack plan is the challenge of coordination.

Reliable communication between a fleet at sea and an army on land many miles away is no mean feat in the 16th century. For Medina Sidonia, it means sending out small boats in the hope that the crews will find Parma's army already at sea, or make their way ashore, find horses, and deliver the messages over land. It is, perhaps, not surprising then, that although Medina Sidonia writes to Parma on a daily basis to arrange the rendezvous, he receives no reply. For the English, on the other hand, the situation is very different. They're the ones who are able to send messages very rapidly. We know because letters are often endorsed with the time.

very rapidly. We know because letters are often endorsed with the time. The postmasters of England are very bureaucratic. And luckily for historians, they tend to write on the back when they receive it. So we know that Sir Francis Drake sends a letter to Henry Seymour in command of the ships in the Channel. And Seymour gets it within 36 hours. And it gets to London within 12 hours. We hear all about the beacons. And the beacons work. We do know that we have the records of Elizabeth's Privy Council, and they do register that the beacons have been lit. They know that the Armada is approaching, but they don't know in what strength. The beacons can't tell them that. But Drake's letter does. Drake's letter gives you the number, what they're doing, what their strategy of peace be, what our strategy is likely to be.

And so having the ability within 48 hours to communicate from Plymouth to London is an enormous plus, something Medina Sidonia does not have and should not have expected to have. But the English have a real advantage there. Naturally enough, the English aren't willing to allow Medina Sidonia the luxury of languishing in the Solent. A massive attack is launched, driving the Armada away. With no safe harbour along the English coast,

Medina Sidonia's only recourse is to take his ships across to Calais, near the northern tip of france it is there that medina sidonia finally hears from palmer but it is not the news he was hoping for the army is still preparing for its part in the invasion and will not be ready for at least several more days and while medina sidonia, the English offer no respite. It is midnight on July 28, 1588. A young Spanish soldier lies awake in the cramped quarters below the deck of his ship, where it sits moored at Calais. Unable to sleep, he scratches furiously at his body where the lice have been feeding on him. Suddenly, he hears a flurry of noise. Something is happening above.

He jumps down from his hammock and races to the deck. His shipmates, still drowsy from sleep, follow suit. As he emerges, he's almost knocked over by someone running across the gun deck. He catches the man and asks him what is happening. The crewman, his eyes wide in terror, flings out an arm pointing in the direction of the English coast and tells him that hell is coming. His heart racing, the young soldier joins a group gathered at the nearest boarding station and grips the thick wooden handrail. Scanning the tilting horizon, he understands what his shipmate meant. The sea is on fire. He counts eight separate blazes, each burning fiercely against the backdrop of the black sky.

And though at first he thinks they're growing, he soon realizes that it's worse than that. They're getting nearer. Because these are Hellburners. Ships that are filled with tar and pitch and gunpowder and brimstone before being set alight and directed towards the enemy. The gun deck thunders into action as the captain and first mate bellow their orders. There's no time to weigh anchor. With the wind behind them, there could be mere minutes before these fire ships are close enough to set the Spanish fleet ablaze or sink it altogether.

Responding to an order without delay, the young man finds a saw and climbs out to begin frantically cutting through the thick anchor cable. Elsewhere on the ship, the sails are spread, while the wind fans the flames of the fire ships and drives them forward at immense speed. But as the severed anchor ropes splash into the waves below, a shout goes up from the crow's nest. The soldier looks up and sees that one of the burning ships

has suddenly deviated from its course. Then another does the same. But it's not the wind that's changed. In the eerie orange light cast by the fires, he sees that some of the armada's smaller vessels have managed to hook onto the burning hulks and are dragging them away. It helps,

but it is too late to divert them all. Six still remain. As the young soldier's ship starts to move, he can now clearly smell the acrid smoke carried on the wind. Now the whole formation of the Armada dissolves into a chaotic, disparate confusion of individual ships trying to save themselves. The use of fire ships is not unique to this battle, but in essence the idea is to create floating mines that are directed against enemy fleets or territory. A skeleton crew sets the course, ignites the ship, and then escapes on smaller boats. While the hope is that some of the Armada's vessels will be damaged, the primary aim is to instill panic and provoke a scattering of the fleet. And this is precisely what Lord Howard achieves at Calais. Now, the problem is if you

lose your anchors, this is going to make life very difficult for you later on. And indeed, one of the reasons why so many armada ships run aground on the way home is because they've left all their anchors off Calais. But in terms of breaking up the fleet, this is the classic tactic. And sacrificing eight ships is a remarkably good investment. And Howard is prepared to do it again. The next major battle is at Gravelines, around 10 miles east of Calais, on July 29. As before, the more maneuverable English ships adopt the tactic of standing off from the Spanish warships to avoid being boarded and to stay out of range

of enemy cannon. They then close in rapidly to launch their own salvos. In fact, so intense is the English onslaught that they begin to run out of ammunition. The Spanish, meanwhile, find retaliation increasingly problematic. One reason why the English fleet seems to suffer little damage from its actions with the Spanish fleet is the Spanish fleet is not firing its guns. No Spanish source actually says that. source actually says that. What they do say is that the English seem to be able to fire from a further distance with accuracy than we can. And that argues that either the Spanish fleet is not able to traverse its guns and aim them, or the powder they're using is not as powerful. But there are those on the Spanish side who said that's one of our problems. But there are those on the Spanish side who said that's one of our problems. The other is that we simply can't fire our guns often enough.

And a lot of the sources say the English are firing their cannons as if they were muskets. And we can only fire once or twice a day. Subsequent investigations of sunken Spanish ships will reveal that many of their cannon were defective or of poor quality. Some have been bored off-centre or are of the wrong calibre to take the available shot, while others appear to have exploded on first use. In other cases, it's clear that there is no drill for reloading guns at sea. The Spanish tactic is you fire one round before you board, and then the troops go ahead.

It's how galleys fight. They fire those guns once, and then the chaps go on to the enemy ship. And it's clear that that's what the Spanish plan to do. So they apparently have no drill for reloading the guns. A further problem for the Spanish is their lack of familiarity with their ships on the part of both the commanders and the guns. A further problem for the Spanish is their lack of familiarity with their ships on the part of both the commanders and the crew. The Portuguese crews of the commandeered galleons

have been completely replaced for fear that they could harbour nationalist ambitions and refuse to follow orders from their Spanish masters. The situation contrasts sharply with the English ships, where the same crews have been on board their ships for many months. And whereas the English have highly trained teams of men dedicated to working the guns, the Spanish tend to have a single gunner. Once the gun has been fired, he must rely on assistance from untrained crew before he

can fire a second time. Five Spanish ships are completely lost in the Battle of Graveline, and many others are severely damaged. Around 2,000 of Medina Sidonia's men are killed or wounded, in stark contrast with only about 100 English troops injured. The Armada is driven into the North Sea, and with the English fleet cutting them off from the obvious route home, there's a serious question for the Spanish of what to do next. The day after the battle, the fleet regroups, and it really has three options. One is that it should get itself together and go back and make another attempt to pick up Palmer and his army. The second option is that it tries to find a port where it can regroup, refresh itself, take on new supplies, come back and pick up Palmer's armory.

The third option is it just runs round the north of Scotland and heads for home. There's a council meeting on Medina Sidonia's flagship, and they do discuss coming back. They discuss all three options. They ruled out the second one, which is trying to find a port, because with 130 ships with maybe 30,000 people on board, that's larger than the largest town. Edinburgh is about 10,000 people at this point. You can't really steer into a port unexpectedly and expect to find enough food, etc., etc.

So Medina Sidonia issues the order, right, we're going home and we're going the long way around. There is in fact another option that is discussed, and that is to yield to the English. Medina Sidonia quickly rules out that possibility. He is not going to surrender to heretics, and he is going to come down hard on any that shirk from their duty. There's maybe 20, 25 survivors of the Armada write an account of it, and a Dominican friar on the flagship

is standing there beside Medina Sidonia. And after the battle with the English fleet, the fireships and the English fleet break up the Armada and Medina Sidonia has to get them together again. So there are signals. They don't work by flags. They work by guns. And so Medina Sidonia fires three guns, which means rally to the flagship. And a number of the ships just keep sailing on and they don't come back. And so the Duke is rather annoyed about this. And so two days later, he brings 20 captains on board the flagship and says, did you not hear the guns? And they said, yes, we thought that meant you were sinking and we should save ourselves. And according to the friar Gongura, there's a long pause.

And then Medina Sidonia says, hang those traitors. Most of them are reprieved. Several of them are deprived of their command. But one of them, a guy called Cristobal de Avila, is actually hanged. He's Don Cristobal. He's a gentleman. Normally, gentlemen are executed by their heads being cut off. To be hanged is a particularly degrading penalty. And this guy is not only hanged, he's then strung up from the yardarm of one of the pinnaces that go around the fleet. So everyone can see, you do this this again you guys fail to rally when i call you this is what's going to happen to you so the spanish armada begins the long trip home

heading up the north sea around the northern tip of scotland and then down past ireland and back towards spain even though the queen's fleet is low on ammunition, it needs to be certain that the enemy cannot land on English soil. It pursues the Armada as far as the Firth of Forth on the east coast of Scotland, over 400 miles from Graveline, before calling off the chase. For some time, Queen Elizabeth has wanted to deliver encouraging words to her troops on the mainland. But her closest advisor, the Earl of Leicester, has strongly advised against it. England is still very much a divided country, and there is a constant threat to Elizabeth's life from the persecuted Catholics. As she has no heir, a successful assassination attempt would mean the end of the tudor state it is only once the armada has been driven well away from london that the queen gets her way she travels

by royal barge to tilbury in the thames estuary east of london where a large militia has been positioned to repel any attempted incursion via the river. Even then, there persists an external threat from the Spanish. Remember the Armada has two elements. One is the fleet from Spain, but there's also the army in the Netherlands, which is 27,000 men, 300 small ships, and a rumor arrives while the queen is at Tilbury that the Duke of Parma has got his men onto the little ships and is about to land. And she says, right, I'm staying here. Wearing armor and saddled on a white steed, Elizabeth gives a rousing speech that will become one of the defining moments of her reign. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, she says, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.

I myself will take up arms. I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. But right now, there's no imminent need for heroism. Indeed, it is now the Spanish who are at risk. Once again, the weather is against the Armada, as powerful storms batter its ships and send them crashing into the treacherous, rocky west coasts of Scotland and Ireland. rocky west coasts of Scotland and Ireland. It is September, 1588,

just off the coast of County Sligo on the west coast of Ireland. Aboard the galleon San Juan de Sicilia, Captain Francisco de Cuellar clings to the mast as sea spray lashes against him. He was transferred to this ship to be executed for disobedience, but although the sentence has yet to be carried out, that's a little comfort to him now. The storms are relentless, and the galleon is being tossed around like a plaything.

The ship is thrown against the rocks and breaks up. The screams and sobs of the desperate men rise with the howl of the wind, and many leap into the choppy waters instead of waiting to be dragged down with the ship. Soon the sea is swirling with dead bodies. The Quayar takes his chance and jumps from the ship. He manages to grab hold of a wooden hatch cover that keeps him afloat. Kicking out, he aims for the shoreline. It's almost impossible to keep his head above water,

but when he surfaces, he can make out bedraggled figures. People who have made it to the beach alive. But as he gets closer, he realizes that he is not yet safe. Mobs of savages in peasant clothing are descending onto the beaches. D'Queya's comrades, too weak from their ordeal on the ship and in the water,

are being beaten and robbed, killed for the belongings they've salvaged and the very clothes they're wearing. There's even the sound of gunfire. Fighting against the mighty tide, D'Queaya turns and sets off parallel with the shoreline. He is cold and hungry, and his strength is rapidly waning. Eventually he finds a bed of rushes and drags himself in, clinging to them in the hope of staying out of the clutches of both the sea and the enemy. staying out of the clutches of both the sea and the enemy. He does not know how much time passes before the beach finally goes quiet.

When he ventures from his hiding place, he sees the full enormity of what has happened here. The sand is littered with bodies, many hundreds of them. Most have probably drowned, but it is also obvious that a large number have been shot or beaten to death. Birds and wild dogs are scavenging the corpses, tearing the flesh from the bones of his fallen countrymen. Dazed and starving, Dekuayar staggers away from the beach and eventually comes across a small abbey. As he gets closer, however, his hopes of rest and sanctuary are soon forgotten. It's Friars, chased out by the English.

This house of God is now little more than a burnt-out ruin. But there's even more horror to come. As he picks his way across the blackened building, he finds a dozen fellow Spaniards swinging from nooses tied to the iron bars of the abbey's windows. There's all sorts of sources on what happens to the Armada ships and their crews when they come ashore in Ireland, and they're all very somber reading. It's clear that the English, and there's only 700 soldiers in the whole of Ireland, and they are terrified that these ships that suddenly appear off the west coast are in fact a second fleet coming up from Spain. And they're very worried that if the Spanish troops get ashore and ally with the discontented Irish, then they will take over the whole of the island.

So they just cut them down as they come ashore. Those that they capture, they hang. In the end, I think 7,000 or 8,000 Spaniards drowned or died coming ashore. And 7,000 or 8, hundred of them were executed by us. The Irish are divided. There are some Irish who are very interested in getting their hands on the loot, and particularly the arms, the weapons, the cannon.

And there are others who are sympathetic and are interested in the soldiers. A number of Irish chieftains pick up 20, 30, 40 Spaniards, who of course are pretty trained. They know how to handle guns and they start training their people, which is why when Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, rebels in the 1590s, he has a number of very well-trained troops trained by Armada survivors. When the Armada finally limps back to Spain, it has suffered huge losses. Many of the vessels that return, including Medina Sidonia's own flagship, are catastrophically damaged. It is a humiliating defeat for Philip II, and a colossal dent in Spain's prestige around the world.

Clearly the Armada is a disaster for Spain. It loses not only a third of its fleet, including some of the important fighting ships, it loses a large number of its siege guns, which were embarked upon merchantmen. That's why excavations of armada ships have turned up a number of these remarkable, beautiful 40-pounder and 50-pounder guns. It loses its cadre of commanders. They're either killed or captured. Of course, also 15,000 men who set off on the armada.

They're not there for Christmas 1588. Mourning takes place all over. Chronicles that we have say it's the worst disaster since the Moorish conquest in 711. On a scale of disaster, that's pretty bad. Both sides claim religious intervention, whereas Philip proclaims that, I sent the armada against men, not God's winds and waves, the English strike commemorative medals that bear the inscription, God blew and they were scattered. This gives huge heart to the Protestant movement, but the English do not overlook their own, more secular, part in the outcome. There is a national upswell of pride in its naval prowess, and a huge surge in popularity

for Queen Elizabeth. However, it is not quite the beginning of English naval mastery, as Elizabeth refuses to commit the necessary finances. Indeed, it is not even the end of the war with Spain, which will continue until just beyond Elizabeth's death in 1603. By the time he arrives back on Spanish soil, the Duke of Medina Sidonia is in poor health. Although King Philip does not blame him for the defeat, there are many others who denounce him publicly for incompetence or even cowardice. to denounce him publicly for incompetence or even cowardice.

And as for Drake, he returns to England as a very rich man, to be showered with adulation. But it is short-lived. The point at which he falls from favour is when he leads the counter-armada in 1589, where he's supposed to go and destroy the remnants of the armada in its harbors in Spain. And in fact, instead, he goes to Portugal and to the Azores to try and get more treasure and loses half his crew, several of his ships, and at that point he's banished. And the queen won't see him anymore. He doesn't come to court. And he's only redeemed when she needs someone to go after the Caribbean

and hit the Spaniards again. And that's the expedition on which he dies. Though Drake's death from dysentery is hardly a dignified end, in his last hours he asks to be buried at sea in full armour. The former Queen's favourite, later named by Forbes magazine as one of history's top earning pirates, is laid to rest in a lead-lined coffin off the coast of Panama, where he remains to this day. Many factors contributed to the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Freak summer storms, limitations of maritime technology, flaws in battle strategy, communication issues, the problems with Spanish armory, all of these played a major part. And yet it is also clear that different decisions could have radically altered the outcome. One of these what-if scenarios occurred not long after the first sighting of the armada off the English coast, when Medina Sidonia refused to attack the fleet moored at Plymouth. Just suppose Medina Sidonia slips on the deck or perhaps a mast falls on his head and he's out of commission and King has established a contingency commander. His name is Don Alonso de Laiva. And he is a fighting commander. He's a lot of experience of war on sea and on land.

And I have absolutely no doubt that when they got close to Plymouth, Laiva, who says at the Council of War, I think we should go for it. Let's attack the English, let's go in. If Medina had not been there to say, no, no, I have my orders, I can't do that, Laeva would have said, right, let's get them. And then it would have been very interesting to see. Another point at which events could have taken a much darker turn

occurred just after the Battle of Gravelin. What the Armada does not know is the English are out of shot. So in fact, if they'd turned and tried again, the English would not have been able to mount a devastating attack as they had done the previous day. But of course, there's no way of them knowing that. So the English just pretend that they're all ready to go and they follow the armada.

One of the armada commanders notices that as soon as the ships turn around to face them, the English back off. And he even speculates, says, that's funny. Why would they do that if they could attack us? But he doesn't pause to think, I know, they've run out of ammunition. He doesn't know that. So as soon as the English back off, they turn around, they continue their travel northwards. But in fact, had they only known,

they could have achieved their goal because the English could not have stopped them a second time. The story of the Spanish Armada is truly a David and Goliath tale. One country standing alone against an immense and powerful empire. And yet it is also a point in history at which, but for a few circumstances in its favor, things could so easily have gone disastrously wrong for England.