Armada

Do you believe that the war Islamic fanaticism is waging against us is JV? Will not effect our way of life or thinking? Let me tell you a story of what happened 428 years ago this week.

Elizabeth I of England came to the throne and looked doomed.  She was just a young girl and Parliament, under her Catholic sister had declared her a bastard and bastards could not sit on the throne.  Protestant nobles, who had gotten the booty of church lands when Henry VIII declared himself Protestant, feared Catholic takeover and installed Elizabeth.  But ¾ of the people were still Catholic.  The government was broke and had to pay 14% interest because of the spendthrift Tudors before her.  The nation was backward and had far more paupers than the continent.  France claimed Britain and already had troops in Scotland.  But the heart of an emperor lived behind the young girl’s smiles. 

She saved and cut back on government, getting finances in order, installed William Cecil, and other commoners as advisors until she had Parliament under her thumb.  She curbed Catholic rebellion by stiff laws and hangings, yet with some tolerance.  She flirted with first France’s crown prince, then King Philip of Spain triangulating the two super-powers.  And she played cat-and-mouse with Spanish shipping by funding privateers to raid.  Hawkins, then Drake plagued Spain all the while she played hard-to-get with Philip. Spain was in total control of the Americas with over 100 colonial cities and incredible wealth.  There was just one man who couldn’t live with that, Francis Drake—trained from youth to pirate, Lutheran and strong about his faith, and dreaming of leading a yet-to-be-built British navy.  From 1580 to 1587, Drake sailed against those American settlements, extracting ransoms and gold and slaves.   Finally, Philip had had enough, broke off the relationship and declared war. 

Philip got a pledge from Pope Sixtus, payable when he invaded England and began building the largest invasion fleet ever seen in Europe.  Drake learned of the Armada in March and begged Elizabeth for ships to raid the fleet in port before it became unstoppable.  At Cadiz he destroyed half of it but Philip kept building.  The Spanish crews (130 ships) and soldiers  (19,000) felt they were on a holy mission to re-establish Catholicism. England waited in dread.  Then the English Catholics came out in support of their queen. All over the country militias were formed.  And pecunious Elizabeth, reluctant to tax found her people donating towards a navy. Asked for 15, the merchants of London refitted 30 merchants as warships and with the 52 from a new British navy and privateers, Drake sailed into the Channel to do battle.  On July 21, 1588 action began.  Spanish thought the Brits would fight like pirates, trying to board their ships.  Instead the English gave them broadsides and outmaneuvered them with light ships.The Iberian guns were unable to hit the Brits as they were mounted too high and the English sailed under them, splintering holes in hulls.  The fight went on for days until the slow Spanish vessels retreated to Calais harbor to re-group, July 27.  Drake wouldn’t let them.  He lit 6 small craft afire and pushed them toward the Spanish docks.  The Armada ships fled to sea where Drake picked off more, sank several and captured a major vessel.  On July 30 the wind carried the Armada into the North Sea.  English pursued for awhile but gave up the chase.  The Spanish had nowhere to go but home to Spain, north around the British Isles.  Heavy storms claimed more ships. 17 were wrecked on the Irish coast where fierce native Celts massacred the survivors.  Of the 27,000 men who had left Spain, 10,000 returned; 54 of 130 ships. Since nobody invaded England, Pope Sixtus reneged payment.

The defeat of the Armada affected almost everything in modern European civilization. It changed naval tactics from grappling to broadsides.  The weakening of the Spanish Hapsburgs helped the Dutch to win independence, advanced Henry IV to the French throne, and opened North America to English colonies.  Protestantism was preserved and strengthened.  Catholicism waned in England.  The Elizabethan energy that lifted up Shakespeare and Bacon and the sciences, would have been burned at the stake had the Inquisition come to Britain. And the British got their navy.

The ability to defend in war is a prerequisite to live and build in peace.