The Spanish Armada

April 28, 2014
In this engaging volume, archeologist and historian Hutchinson (Young Henry) sets out to overturn one of the cherished legends taught in British primary schools: that the Spanish Armada was valiantly turned back by heroic Francis Drake and Queen Elizabeth’s navy. Drawing heavily on the letters and accounts of witnesses and participants, Hutchinson lays out ample evidence that the Spanish ships sank more from happenstance than heroism. “Despite the triumphant claims by Elizabeth’s government, this was not a crushing defeat inflicted by the queen’s ships through overwhelming naval tactics,” he says, noting that “all the Spanish casualties were lost in accidents or in the fierce storms that raged after the Armada had sailed north to Scotland.” Dozens of ships foundered off the coast of Ireland without the English lifting a finger, and one massive warship exploded just out of range of English cannons—the unconfirmed rumor was that “a gunner who had been cuckolded by a Spanish naval officer” took his revenge by setting alight a barrel of gunpowder. And as Hutchinson’s engrossing work reveals, Drake’s reputation as a pirate, if not as a commander, remains unsullied: repeatedly snubbing Elizabeth’s top advisers and ignoring direct orders, he proved more interested in chasing after ships carrying Spanish gold than in any tactical concerns.

Starred review from April 15, 2014
Historians regularly weigh in on the 1588 sea battle with Spain that assured the survival of a Protestant England, and contemporary readers will certainly enjoy this outstanding contribution. In Europe during the Reformation, religion remained a matter of life and death, especially as it concerned the clashes between Catholics and Protestants. Elizabeth I (1533-1603) ruled the only large Protestant nation in Europe, the focus of fierce opposition led by the devout Philip II of Spain, a superpower that included Portugal, the Low Countries and much of central Europe. Although bankrupted by the ongoing Dutch rebellion, Philip determined to invade England by sending an immense fleet to the Low Countries to transport an army across the Channel. This was no secret, and Tudor historian Hutchinson (Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII, 2012, etc.) excels in his descriptions of the flow of information, emphasizing England's pioneering intelligence service, which he recounted in Elizabeth's Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England (2006). "Reading the letters and dispatches written during those days of national peril," writes the author, "something approaching a barely controlled panic gripped Elizabeth's government." Protestants remained a minority. Catholic noblemen had already led several rebellions; Elizabeth and her ministers feared another in support of the invasion. Readers know how the battle turned out, but they will relish Hutchinson's intensely detailed account, which belies the usual myths--e.g., Britain's fleet was not outnumbered; Spain's naval leadership was competent; Sir Francis Drake did not turn the tide; weather, starvation and disease, not battle, produced almost all the casualties. Following victory, England tried to retaliate, sending a fleet to invade Spain in 1589, a move that proved to be a disaster. Those with fond memories of Garrett Mattingly's classic The Armada (1959) will discover an equally enthralling successor.

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June 1, 2014
Author of several Tudor histories, Hutchinson takes on the event fabled as the apex of Elizabeth I's reign, her 1588 triumph over Spain's Phillip II's attempted invasion of England. A subject identified with a classic, comprehensive account, The Armada, by Garrett Mattingly (1959), its naval details are Hutchinson's focus in this presentation. Exemplified in a 30-page table of every ship in the English and Spanish fleets, his attention to battle at sea, sixteenth-century style, induces wonder at how Phillip and his high command thought they could succeed. From assembling the Armada to supplying it to navigating it to communicating with the Flanders-based invasion force, the operational challenges in retrospect seem daunting. But this was a religious war, Phillip's play to restore Catholicism in England, and hope of divine succor, evident in documents Hutchinson quotes, impelled the Spanish forward. Spain's hope mirrored the Tudor government's fear of a Catholic rising, and its intelligence network and actions against suspected opponents furnish an additional theme. Culminating with the Armada's ghastly shipwrecks in Ireland, Hutchinson's day-by-day story of the Armada is a fine production for maritime history buffs.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)