The Armada Invincible
My slant on the Armada.
It’s 1588 and history tells us that the Spanish built a fleet of ships known as the Armada Invincible. 130 ships set sail planning to overthrow Elizabeth 1st, which would ultimately stop protestant interference in the Spanish Netherlands.
History tells us they chose not to attack the English Fleet at Plymouth, but then failed to establish an anchorage in the Solent after an attack by an English fire ship….
The armada invincible managed to regroup and withdrew to the North with the wind after having their fingers burnt with the English fleet chasing them in the Atlantic Ocean, where once again history would have us believe storms caught the warships, scattering them and wrecking a third of this magnificent fleet, the rest travelled back in a ragged state. BUT… think about it….
After many years of observing and listening to this wonderful race of people, and their mañana approach to life where everything is promised in a rush, but delivered and done mañana, or maybe the mañana after The people live up to their promises, but slowly. Their privacy is important to them, or so we believed, but not one of them can have a phone call in the house no matter where or when, they will stand outside with a phone clasped to their ear shouting their messages as if using a bean can and string. Some races have difficulty pronouncing certain words because of the way we all use our tongues, eg: the Spanish roll their r’s, some race’s cannot pronounce the letters ‘th’ as ‘th’ and use ‘f’ instead eg: for ‘three’ they use ‘free’.
Our youth do that because they are lazy, but what the Spanish, as a race of people cannot do, (bless their cotton socks) is whisper and this is where I think the history books have lied to us all along.
Think about it, everything is done mañana (tomorrow), they could never have had a fleet of ships ready even though Elizabeth reigned for many years, they would have always been ready tomorrow… and then the reality of them not attacking the fleet at Plymouth, well come on, they have a fiesta for everything, fireworks celebrations and vino at the drop of a hat and for a drop of a hat. So I reckon this fleet set sail, and missed out on some festivals while preparing to fight the English. Not willing to let this happen the first thing they do is ensure a huge celebration because they have built some ships, and managed to set sail celebrating the event with deafening explosions loud enough to be heard across the sea. As if the cannon fire didn’t warn the English fleet of their launch they continued in stealth making their way across the channel, alas, the Spanish are a voluble race and I guess their sheer exuberance would have alerted Plymouth before they even passed France because one thing we have learnt over the years about our much loved Spanish cousins is, they never do anything quietly and they never shut up.
At Plymouth I reckon the English heard them first and saw the fireworks later and so pre-warned they roused the troops. The English plan to send in a fire ship was a stroke of genius, the Spanish love a good fire festival and at home, they celebrate by building huge statues, (ninots) often identifiable with a well known local personality or politician, which on land they parade around the towns and then set them on fire, and the Vino flows like water. At another one, at midnight they walk on the dying embers and wash three times in the sea to bring them luck.
On the Armada Invincible, the poor Spanish, possibly hot on Vino and fire watching, obviously forgot they were heading off supposedly to trounce the English and anchored in Calais when they spied the pretty flames from an English fire ship heading towards them, flames rising in a cascade of golden sparks, causing them to open another barrel or two of vino to celebrate. At first they watched enamoured of the flames until their own ships began catching on fire, scoring an own goal, quickly sobering, they had to make sail as best and as fast as they could, mañana would be too late, thus giving the English the chance to trounce them from our shores where they attacked at Gravelines. The unhappy Spanish fled only to be swamped and sunk by storms thus came the end of the Armada invincible.