All of us my age had “world history” for the first time in the 4th Grade and then again in the 6th grade.  That’s the old days when History was History and didn’t have to be some kind of modern attempt to make it “relavant” to children’s life–calling history ” thematic studies” or something like that;  my mother used to chuckle at all this reworking of history.  She used to say “1066 is 1066, and you will learn a lot of dates as pigeon holes, and that is that!”  During my chronological study of history, certain images filled our history books.  The Armada portrait of Queen Elizabeth I and images of the Spanish Armada in the English Channel were part of those early impressions.  I think that is the same with all of us of some “age and vintage.”  Mrs. Moore and I are at our home high in the Rocky Mountains escaping the very hot weather that has hit our part of the world, so I am enjoying reading books I have wanted to finish.  One of those books is the biography of Sir Francis Drake called the GOLDEN HIND.  Suddenly, I started reading the term THE ENGLISH ARMADA.  I kept stopping to be sure I was reading correctly.  ENGLISH ? ARMADA?   I have studied British history all my life both at school and at home, but I never heard the expression ENGLISH ARMADA.

Well, it is 4:04 am, and I am buzzing away like a bee reading about the ENGLISH ARMADA.  How could this term eluded me!?  1588 was the Spanish Armada;  that is one of the pigeon holes I learned as a child.  But 1589 is the English Armada!  I never heard of such a term as a child.  NEVER

Sir Francis Drake–I know him.  The Earl of Essex–I know him.  Sir Walter Raleigh–I certainly know about him;  he even smoked a pipe filled with tobacco with the Queen!  There are no strangers here.

But here is the story I am reading about during the night.  Queen Elizabeth I and her Privy Counselors believed that the Spanish ships had been totally destroyed during the engagement with the English fleet in the English Channel.  The Queen was not aware that most of the ships which were destroyed were other than the great Spanish war ships.  Those ships made it back to Spanish and Portuguese ports and were being refitted.  Believing that Spain was in a seriously weakened state, the English under Sir Francis Drake put together another armada;  this time it was an English Armada for the purpose of establishing a stronghold in southern Spain and raiding ports and merchants vessels.

We never hear about the English Armada because it was thoroughly beaten and whipped, and returned to England leaving the country financially weakened, and the end of the Queen’s reign not the “Gloriana” England had hoped for.  Queen Elizabeth established a solid financial basis for her great reign, but that security was dashed by the costs of the English Armada.   I often wondered what Spain was like after the Spanish Armada and somehow learned that this was the beginning of Spain’s maritime downfall and financial ruin.  That simply is not true.  Spain’s defeat of the English in 1589 gave new life to Spanish merchant ships and their maritime fleets.  England for another decade tried to recover from the failure of the Privy Counsel’s plan to completely destroy Spain which they believed to be in a horrifically weakened position.   They were badly advised.

I am on my way through this very heavy book–heavy page after heavy page, and I will keep you posted.  (My friend Alison Mitchell told me that her very elegant grandmother Mrs. Pugmire told her not to read in bed or she would break her nose!)  Here are a few facts from our “quick notes”  Wiki.  A good capsule anyway.  I hope you are struggling with all this as I am.  Maybe someone set you straight long ago;  I have been in total ignorance, and I am supposed to be a degreed Renaissance literature scholar who published studies about the French Pleiade in the 1960′s.  (How is that for trivia!?)   Yikes!

Thomas Moore   email:  TMooreSr@me.com    Telephone:  801.791.9918

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