Howzat!!!!!

 

What is wrong? This thread has been open for more than 15 minutes and there is still no posting from Filipvs.

 

[]


After that Armada posting he might be licking his wounds!

 

He's looking up the weather forecast and tide tables for 1588 and that year's appointment lists for the Plymouth Special Treatment Clinic. Don't worry, he'll be here.

John T

 

Sir Francis Drake had little to do with the destruction of the Armada. It was mainly down to the bad weather.

 

A better example would be the thrashing given, in 1982, to them as wished to claim that they had inherited assorted bits of the Spanish Empire in the South Atlantic...

 

Weather didn't have anything to do with the Spanish getting a serious beating when they teamed up with the French at Trafalgar though... *innocent face*

 

Weather had a bit to do with all those Scots and Irish lasses getting knocked up by shipwrecked ***** though.

John T

 

good day derik roger.super moderator.a nice piece of naval history.sad to think we no longer have a navy.thanks for posting regards ben27

 

My history book in primary school told me that Oor Wally played bowls on Plymouth Hoe even as the Spanish ships came up the channel Me thinketh, stockyard confetti.

 

Some say the bowls game did not need to be interrupted because it was low water and the fleet would have been aground.

Bad weather and unfamiliar coasts certainly accounted for most of the Armada's losses, but Captain Frankie's handy ships could get to weather of the invaders and were decisive in preventing a landing. The 'cod head & mackerel tail' hull form made them manoeuvrable thanks to someone (the name escapes me) many years before taking the lines of a stranded whale. Nature still has lessons for us - more than ever now.

 

Hi RH #12 sorry I'm out of sync mate! I called him Wally because I got him confused with that fella who whipped his cape off so's Lizzie didn't have to stand in a puddle. Frankie was the man but I think it's an early example of propaganda all the same

 

Or as Henry Ford put it, "History is bunk," no doubt because propaganda plays such a large part. Some propaganda is probably lies, but quite a bit is selective use of what could be true.

I prefer tall stories to history. Then all that's needed is what ought to be true.

 

Derek Roger;750818]Been doing a bit of reading .

Drakes raid on Cadiz was a master stroke ; burned the King of Spain,s beard .

Then the Armada ; 130 ships ; 2500 Guns ; 8000 Seamen and 20000 soldiers .
Totally destroyed by a small English fleet of small fast vessels .
I don't suppose there was ever a heavier defeat of any navy than that event

start 122 ships

2 lost accidentally in channel
4 destroyed at Calais
armada fled
34 maybe 35 foundered or grounded, weather was mainly to blame for a third of the fleet being lost

80 made it home (Thumb)

 

Quite correct Joe. It was the start of a long Spanish tradition and continues even today, see -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuzSkFlsILc

 

#14

Even our 'Enry qualified it by saying that history is "more or less" bunk....."

I'll get my coat!

 

Weather had a bit to do with all those Scots and Irish lasses getting knocked up by shipwrecked ***** though.

Yes, bit of a joke in our family that my wife's Western Isles connection has a bit of **** genetic code
Have to be careful using that term; my younger nephew's partner is an academically distinguished Spanish lady. He gets away with using it in front of her - I wouldn't.

 

"****" is supposed to come from "No spicka da Ingles", no worse than "******" - supposed to be from the Texan soldiers singing "Green go the rushes o". Wonder if your nephew would get away with "*******".

John T

 

Does it matter whether it was Drake or the weather that brought them asunder? My understanding was that they were forced tactically y Drake to sail close to the coast as he pursued them with the bad weather going to finish the job.
Come on Filipv's we love you.

 

their intention was not to get caught as they were on their way to pick up arms and recruits in flanders before invading the south east (Thumb)

 

Maybe a contraction of Hispanic?

 

Elizabeth surely rewarded the sailors,like hell she did ,more died waiting on their ships thro illness than died in the battle as she would not pay them and they stayed aboard because they had nowhere to go. The captains of the ships paid out of their own pockets to go out and wage war against the Spanish not Elizabeth.But then that's what seamen come to accept down the years look at how our merchant seamen have been treated in the last two world wars.Still I am glad the armada failed, at least I am able to choose my own religion and not be dictated to by a guy in Rome in a frock,no disrespect to our Catholic brethren.

 

Elizabeth surely rewarded the sailors,like hell she did ,more died waiting on their ships thro illness than died in the battle as she would not pay them and they stayed aboard because they had nowhere to go. The captains of the ships paid out of their own pockets to go out and wage war against the Spanish not Elizabeth.But then that's what seamen come to accept down the years look at how our merchant seamen have been treated in the last two world wars.

Good point. She didn't make a speech at Tilbury either, more propaganda.
In any case, Drake was one of the many captains involved, although officially second in command, probably because of a lack of any kind of Naval signalling he didn't lead anything beyond his own ship.
The English ships, as well as being smaller, faster and more manoevreable, were also carrying guns designed for repeated firing at sea, whereas the Spanish guns were designed to be fired once, just before boarding. However, the English fleet didn't seriously damage the Armada, any more than the Armada damaged the English fleet, it was the weather that led the Armada to sail north from Gravelines, not the English fleet, and it was the weather that destroyed nearly all of the ships that were lost. Most of the Spanish survivors of shipwreck on the Irish coast were executed on Elizabeth's orders.

 

So the Tudors gave everyone a choice on Religion now thats what I call real brainwashing the American president was right History is bunkum.KYPROS

 

Thanks scelerat for some realistic comments a relief from the jingostic comments from the usual sources.KYPROS

 

They were supposed to collect the Duke of Parma's army (I think), and bring them across the channel. However, the weather prevented that. they couldn't sail into the wind, and couldn't stay where they were, so they sailed North. The English fleet let them go. Essentially the English fleet harried them as they sailed through the channel to their destination, but couldn't stop them. The Spanish ships' design meant that they couldn't sail into the wind, so the weather stopped their invasion, not the English fleet.
The Dutch claim that they beat the Spanish with fireships, so there are two countries who claim victory!

 

They were supposed to collect the Duke of Parma's army (I think), and bring them across the channel. However, the weather prevented that. they couldn't sail into the wind, and couldn't stay where they were, so they sailed North. The English fleet let them go. Essentially the English fleet harried them as they sailed through the channel to their destination, but couldn't stop them. The Spanish ships' design meant that they couldn't sail into the wind, so the weather stopped their invasion, not the English fleet.
The Dutch claim that they beat the Spanish with fireships, so there are two countries who claim victory!

Not being argumentive Scelerat because I know very little about ship movement by sail, but how did the Spaniards sail anywhere at all if they couldn't sail into the wind? I mean, if they always needed the wind from astern or maybe abeam, how did they get anywhere?

 

In the Cold war Soviet Navy the Political Officer was the man in charge of the ship.

My understanding is that a similar situation existed in the Spanish Armada where the equivalent of the day, the Priests, were actually running things.

It was not a Naval battle of the type that was seen earlier, in the Mediterranean and later, between organised Navies.

England did not have a Navy as such, just a disparate fleet of ships each under their own commander and no central control.
Spain had a 'fleet' as such but the people who knew how to sail and fight had to follow orders, no matter how impractical, from people who did not.

 

The commander of the vessel was the Captain, a soldier, whose job was to fight, and who commanded the soldiers onboard. The operation of the ship, under the Captain's orders, was the responsibility of the ship master. The Captain would order the Master to take his ship alongside an enemy ship, or whatever, the Master would do so.
Although priests were onboard, they had no authority of any kind beyond the spiritual.

 

Most of the Spanish survivors of shipwreck on the Irish coast were executed on Elizabeth's orders.

I wonder if any made it, sheltered, at what would have been great risk to themselves, by Irish, Scottish and Western Isles Catholics?

 

Very few. The catholic Irish were quite happy to slaughter the hapless Spanish survivors. On the other hand, they would have slaughtered any shipwrecked sailors, whoever they were. one of the perks of living on that coast was the fruit of the sea, the wrecks.

 

"...Many spaniards who escaped the wreck and arrived without incident to land were executed by Lord Turlough O'Brien of Liscannor and Boethius Clancy, High Sheriff of County of Clare. The region was infested with english soldiers. Orders were to kill the spaniards where they found them and impose the same fate to anyone who will shelter them.

In the County of Mayo, a Scottish mercenary named McLaughlan killed 80 exhausted castaways.

72 survivors were executed in the city of Galway. Similar massacres took place in the islands of Mutton and Clare. In Donegal, 560 men under the command of Alonso de Luzon ran into a column of cavalry. After several confrontations, the "ingleses" promised them safety if they surrendered. Finally all of them were massacred as soon as they delivered their arms.

But there were some survivors. Francisco de Cuellar, Captain of the "San Pedro", shipwrecked in Sligo, and wrote his adventure in Ireland, escaped from Crange to Castletown, towards the east, seeking the protection of O'Rourke of Leitrim, a local warlord who welcomed the Spaniards. Finally O'Rourke of Leitrim paid their offense with his life. He was hanged by the neck in London in 1590..."

It was a very happy island this Ireland of the XVI century...

 

If the Spanish hadn't invaded, and hadn't encouraged rebellion, then shipwrecked Spaniards might, might, have been better received.......
On the other hand, Ireland was a land of constant warfare, the various Irish chieftains, whether genuine Irish, or Anglo-Irish, or "Old English" were constantly at war with each other, and if they weren't at war with other they were feuding within their own families.

 

Certainly the weather suited the English more so than the Spaniards .

However it is my point that the attack on Cadiz was most important .It bought an extra year of time for the well known possibility of attack .

The Armada was a ***bersome fleet of vessels which could make little headway into the wind .

The English were able to have a strategy and tactics planned that would put them in a commanding position once an attack was made .
The Spanish ships had short range large guns designed to come alongside an enemy and virtually blow them out of the water before soldiers would board and finish the job .
The English vessels were fast an manoeuvrable and with long range reloadable guns were able to sail up and down the Spanish lines out of range from their guns and wreck havoc .

When the weather worsened the Armada had no option but to flee up the west coast being pursued by the English ships ( note both had the same weather to contend with )

The net result was about 15000 Spanish sailors and soldiers dead ; either by direct contact ; shipwrecked of killed on land after shipwreck . That was more than 50% of those who set out to attack England .

Naval strategy was to change after that for fast manoeuvrable vessels as opposed to the Spanish vessels of the Armada .

 

.It bought an extra year of time for the well known possibility of attack .

This is most important, as is Chamberlain's oft derided Munich Agreement - this delayed the start of WW2, giving us an extra year to prepare, had we not had that time the outcome of The Battle of Britain would almost certainly have been different, Operation Sealion could haf proceeded with a fair chance of success and the world we inhabit today could be very different.

 

“On the fifth day, there sprung up a great storm on our beam, with a sea up to the heavens, so that the cables could not hold nor sails serve us, and we were driven ashore with all three ships upon a beach , covered with very fine sand, shut in on one side and the other by great rocks.”

“At dawn of the day I began to walk little by little, searching for a monastery of monks, that I might repair to it as best I could, which I arrived at with much trouble and toil. I found it deserted, and the church and images of the saints burned and completely ruined, and twelve Spaniards hanging in the church by act of the Lutheran English, who went abroad searching for us to make an end to us all who had escaped from the sea.” Francisco de Cuéllar