Abstract
The dramatic scene of the English galleon Victory on 10 August 1588, battle-scarred and buffeted, with empty shot lockers and a colossal enemy invasion force somewhere to leeward, is an appropriately powerful image with which to open Armada, Colin Martin and Geoffrey Parker's latest treatment of ‘the greatest and strongest combination … that ever was gathered in Christendom’ (2), as the navy treasurer John Hawkins wrote from the Victory's cabin. As well as building on Martin and Parker's two previous books on the Armada, the first published in the quartercentenary in 1988 and the revised and expanded edition in 1999, the present text draws on two illustrious careers of scholarship: Martin, as a maritime archaeologist with impressive experience on Armada wrecks as well as three later vessels, and Parker, as an archival investigator and grand synthesist of the military and geopolitical world of Habsburg Spain.
Following but greatly augmenting the structure of the previous texts, and with an expanded portfolio of illustrations, Martin and Parker open with a brief description of the Armada and its protagonists, which is followed by a chapter on Spain's war in the ‘great bog of Europe’ and a chapter on the Tudor ‘Dreadnought revolution’ in ship design and gunnery tactics. They then jump back 30 years to succinctly summarize the broader geopolitical, religious and dynastic background of the Armada, before returning to the action to painstakingly narrate the movements and engagements of the fleet up the English Channel, replete – as elsewhere – with a wealth of quotes from the key decision-makers. However, Martin and Parker narrate not just the genesis and progress but also the afterlife of the fleet, adding real and often harrowing detail to the familiar story of the battered ships limping home or foundering. The authors then offer a detailed ‘Analysis of Failure’, which alone justifies the presence of Armada on any maritime historian's shelf, including the fascinating detail from both archival and archaeological sources – a running theme – that, despite Medina Sidonia's claim to have run out of ammunition, what heavy guns the Armada did have were mostly underused, despite the ship-smashing English bombardment. They then narrate the Spanish and English actions in the aftermath (apportioning blame and gloating before attempting a counterattack, respectively). The book closes with three self-contained chapters. The first is a counterfactual, ‘If the Armada Had Landed’, with an interesting comparison to 1688 but a sober opinion of the Duke of Parma's chances of achieving regime change. This is followed by a chapter entitled ‘The Armada in History and Legend’ – perhaps a peripheral section but nonetheless thought-provoking, such as the detail that in 2016 a vessel of the modern Armada Española sailed off Streedagh to drop a wreath into the waters where 1100 Spaniards perished in 1588 and ‘bones are still sometimes revealed in the shifting dunes’ (510). Finally, Martin and Parker provide a succinct and well-illustrated description of the archaeological efforts made on the key wrecks, which any historian feeling guilty about their lack of prior engagement with archaeology will appreciate.
Insofar as the book has a main character, it is the man who launched the Armada, the ‘most Catholic King’ Philip II, who is brought to life and allowed to speak for himself by lavish but judiciously selected quoting of an astonishing range of primary sources. This is the tip of the iceberg of Parker's lifetime spent studying Philip's psyche, as well as his ‘grand strategy’, and both are on display here. The Armada was conceived to cut through the Gordian knot of Protestant England and the threats it posed to Spain's strategic interests, and in pulling together such a mass of ships and men from across the Iberian world, it demonstrated the sheer power of Philip's ‘empire upon which the sun never set’ (39). Yet Parker's close examination of Philip's follies is equally important, following his established portrayal of the King as obsessed with minute detail, utterly unable to delegate – despite being so far removed from the theatre of conflict – and, above all, convinced of the divine approval of his cause, and therefore that ‘our Lord will surely guide everything’ (270).
Philip, however, is simply one of a much more socially diverse cast of courtiers, clerics, soldiers and sailors whom Martin and Parker bring to life. The careful selection of quotes helps remind the reader that these are people with very real and often tragic stories. Medina Sidonia, for example, a familiar character in the Armada story, is – like the fleet he commanded – followed by Martin and Parker back to Spain, where he was reportedly taunted with ‘Drake, Drake is coming!’ (425) as he lay bedridden with shock and exhaustion. Yet the most moving ‘human stories’ of the book are of less exalted men, such as the Spanish veteran who, after surviving 20 years in the army and a harrowing voyage back with the defeated Armada, was blinded and maimed by a powder detonation in a Spanish port. Archaeological findings also help transform this book from a simple narrative into a truly immersive experience, with the 155 illustrations including everyday objects like salt cellars and personal crucifixes alongside the expected heavy artillery and propagandistic paintings. While the unique marriage of virtuoso archival research and archaeology helps to humanize the Armada story, however, maritime historians will likely be more interested in the harder-edged questions of strategy, tactics and technology that Martin and Parker also address, with ample data and succinct summaries revealing the differences in design, firepower, structure and tactics that saved Elizabethan England, and a brief nod to the Royal Navy's place in the ‘Military Revolution' at sea.
The authors conclude Armada with an exhortation on the value of combining conventional history with the ‘ever-developing science’ of maritime archaeology. Although they concede that ‘few past events, of any period’ (545), lend themselves so well to such interdisciplinary investigation as the Armada, this book should encourage all maritime historians – and, indeed, military historians – to integrate archaeology and material culture in their own fields. Martin and Parker have created not merely a very vivid and uniquely detailed retelling of a familiar story – which they reconstruct with consummate skill – but also a passage to the sixteenth-century maritime world. Like the Armada itself, the book is a vast accumulation of painstaking effort, but, unlike Philip's fleet, this Armada deserves to sail home in triumph.