Word: armadas
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Before the 130-odd ships that were the core of the Spanish Armada had been provisioned, searched for contraband women, and set creaking out of Lisbon harbor in May of 1588, one of the captains assessed the expedition's chances; unless a miracle occurred, the English could be expected to knock the Spanish to pieces. "So," he finished with heavy irony, "we are sailing against England in the hope of a miracle...
...Armada's plan for the assault was to sail from Lisbon to Dunkirk, pick up the Duke of Parma's powerful army, toughened by the Low Country wars, and invade England. But, astoundingly, no provision had been made for getting the army aboard the Armada's vessels. The Duke of Parma had no deep-water port, and Spain's fighting ships could not get within miles of Dunkirk's beach. Parma had only a few rotting barges to bridge the distance. But as things turned out, the Duke never had his chance to drown because...
...Prudent," abandoned prudence long enough to let himself be talked into a campaign designed to cut Protestant Elizabeth down to size. The project, tersely referred to as The Enterprise, was hastily begun. From the start, nothing went right with armaments, provisions, recruiting, and 3½ months be fore the Armada was to sail, its aged admiral died. King Philip unaccountably replaced him with the Duke of Medina Sidonia who objected miserably that "I know by experience of the little I have been at sea that I am always seasick and always catch cold...
...July 29 the Armada was reported off Plymouth,* and Sir Francis Drake cockily went on with his game of bowls, supposedly boasted that he had time to finish and beat the Spaniards too. Of the running sea fight that began next day, Historian Mattingly observes: "No naval campaign in previous history, and none afterward until the advent of the aircraft carrier, involved so many fresh and incalculable factors...
Writes Historian Mattingly at the end of his clear and perceptive account: "Historians agree that the defeat of the Spanish Armada was one of the Decisive Battles of the World, but there is much less agreement as to what it decided." Certainly not the war between Spain and England; that dragged on for nearly 14 years and ended in a draw. Nor did it cut down the Spanish colonial empire. What the defeat did accomplish, Mattingly argues, was to halt the spread of the Counter Reformation and provide the English with a handy legend of victory. "It raised...