The Armada (American Heritage Library) [Paperback]

No one would write a book about the Armada quite like this again - during the quadcentenial (1988), the interest seemed to focus on the ships, armaments and tactics. Mattingley is weak on these, and if that is your prime interest, look to Geoffrey Parkers book published in 1988. However, for narrative force, characterization and political background, Mattingley has no equals. For me, his account of the Armada, published over 40 years ago , is still the best by far. The narrative swings from Low Counries, to Madrid, to Cadiz, to Paris, finally to the Channel and Calais, then back to France. Mattingley shows that the defeat of the Armada ensured the survival of the Reformation and (not least) the independent survival of England, France and the Netherlands. Yet he is even handed at every stage, indeed Medina-Sidonia (the Armada's commander) is one of the heroes. Other heroes are Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Parma and Henri III of France. Well, maybe anti-hero for Henri III, Henri of Navarre (Henri IV to come) is the true French hero. Indeed, for me, the nastiest figures in the book are not Spanish at all. One is Henri of Guise, Philip's co-conspirator in France, and Sir Francis Drake, who comes across as both paranoid and greedy. Read and be transfixed by its narrative sweep - each chapter is like a dramatic news bulletin adding to the powerful impact of the unfolding story.

Not all "classics" of history age as well as Garrett Mattingly's "The Armada," which was first published in 1959 to coincide with the quadricentennial of Philip II's failed attempt at the so-called "Enterprise of England." His scholarship may be subject to legitimate contemporary scrutiny and reassessment, but his writing is timeless.

The naval commander of the Spanish Armada, the duke of Medina Sidonia, emerges as the unlikely hero in Mattingly's narrative of the epic events in the fateful year of 1588. Medina Sidonia has for centuries been the primary scapegoat for the failure of the Armada, a fate that the duke himself perpetuated by taking blame for the disaster and frequently admitting that he was not up to the challenge. Mattingly's rejoinder is "hogwash" - Medina Sidonia did an admirable job in leading the Armada to within a whisker of success despite the tremendous odds stacked against it for a variety of reasons. The author suggests that Horatio Nelson himself could have done no better than the much-maligned duke. As far as finger pointing goes, Mattingly condemns the duke of Parma, the Spanish land commander in the Netherlands and generally considered the greatest general of the age, for his failures to be adequately prepared to meet the Armada and sail on to the invasion of England. (Modern scholars such as Geoffrey Parker have vigorously defended Parma's performance recently.)

Mattingly focuses on several aspects of the naval engagement itself that are worthy of note and rather counter to conventional wisdom. To begin with, he rightfully stresses the unprecedented nature of the sea battles that ensued when the Armada met the English fleet off the southern coast of England in the first week of August 1588. Never before had fleets of such size met in running combat. A change so dramatic in naval warfare would not happen again, Mattingly writes, until 1942 when the US and Japanese fleets engaged in a contest of aircraft carriers fighting each other over the horizon. Thus, all major naval battles from 1588 to 1942 differ only in ship design and tactics, not in any other fundamental way. And Mattingly notes that the four naval engagements that occurred along the south English coast from the Eddystone to the Isle of Wight were each far larger in terms of ships engaged and shots fired than all other sea battles before them.

Perhaps most surprising is Mattingly's generally positive assessment of Spanish seamanship, discipline and tactics, and his argument that the "revolutionary" English strategy of long-range heavy bombardment from more mobile "race built" ship designs was largely a failure (for some reason the author makes no mention of the four-wheel artillery carriage design that did so much to add firepower and rate of fire to English ships). Indeed, Mattingly asserts that Sir Francis Drake's destruction of a depot of barrel staves at St. Francis Cape in 1587 that were destined for the Armada did as much, if not more, than anything else to cripple the Spanish fleet because they were forced to sail with green wood barrels that caused much of their water and food to putrefy. And the greatest English advantage in the entire campaign, according to Mattingly, was that the battles occurred close to home ports so they could quickly and easily resupply critical items like powder, ammunition, and victuals, all of which the English ships ran out of on several occasions during the week. If the English fleet had met the Armada off the coast of Portugal, as many had argued for, they would have been forced to break off the engagement after just one or two battles of the ferocity and intensity that occurred off the English coast.

Much has been made of the English advantage in leadership and crew experience and the outdated Spanish "crescent" arrangement, which was the common deployment of gallies in the Mediterranean but totally unsuited, many have argued, for naval warfare in the open ocean against huge warships. But Mattingly writes that the crescent was the perfect formation for the Armada's essentially defensive task - secure passage through the Channel, rendezvous with the Parma's army, and escort the convoy across. Time and again, the author lauds Medina Sidonia and the Spanish sailors for keeping in formation and sliding past the tactically superior English fleet on their way through the Channel. Meanwhile, the English were frustrated by the inability of their advantage in long-range gunnery and superior maneuverability to destroy the Spanish warships located at the horns of the crescent. It was only the famed fireships that ultimately caused the Armada's formation to lose cohesion and thus vulnerable to English decimation.

So, was the defeat of the Armada really all that decisive? Militarily speaking, Mattingly says "no." The Spanish were able to recover, defeat the Drake-led invasion of Portugal the next year, and continued to fight Elizabeth and import bullion across the Atlantic for decades. Politically speaking, the author says "yes," the failure of the Armada to link with Parma and invade England permanently undermined Spanish prestige and influence in Europe, ushering in the ultimate defeat of the Counter-Reformation that Philip II championed and led in many ways.

All in all, a great book that is both fun to read and informative.

Given Mattingly's insight into Mendova's political manuevers in Paris, Philip II's understanding of European powers, and the role of the Catholic Church in European politics, this was required reading for a college course on European Diplomacy (1500-1918). While a naval historian might find fault in the lack of details and maps, Mattingly does cover the moves and countermoves by the English and Spanish reasonably well, especially for novice sailors like me. However, Mattingly correctly focuses on the lasting influence of the English Enterprise by the Spanish Armada: the flawed belief of a power shift in European politics and the myth(s) it produced.

Yes, in keeping with the title of the book, the moves by Spanish Armada are covered in a "daily diary" format, which actually serves to better highlight the real driving force of this work. Mattingly loves to dive into all the source material available and gain a sense of the diplomacy, delayed communication, and potential thoughts of the majors players. In doing so, Mattingly presents all the rumors and views (circa 1588), shows how historians have ran with those "facts" (now rooted in a collective memory), but he then corrects and deals those assumptions as flawed, baseless, or plausible. For example, Drake is often given credit for defeating the Spanish Armada, though he was not in command of the British fleet. Contrary to some stories, the Spanish were not damned by poor weather, but actually had the best seas imaginable. These are minor points, but were often touchstones for historical and political spinning. Mattingly does well in not only debunking these "truths" but in determining when and why they began.

This is not revisionist history in the "politically correct" sense of the word. Rather, it lays out the various stories, notes the points of the bias, and seeks to synthesize a coherent story given the available primary sources. Mattingly presents history as it should be - a clear story driven by primary sources which respects the prism of bias inherent in sources.

Buy this book.