Armada 1588: The Spanish Assault on England by John Barratt

Author:John Barratt
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: HISTORY / Modern / 16th Century
ISBN: 9781844683499
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Published: 2006-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

As Medina Sidonia himself admitted, there was a good deal of opposition amongst his senior commanders to the decision to anchor, but they can only have proposed one of two alternatives: either they were hoping for a favourable wind in which to bring the English fleet to battle, or – having had ample opportunity to get the measure of their opponents in the skirmishes of the preceding days – they wanted to abandon the whole enterprise and head back to Spain. The army commander, Francisco de Bobadilla, was clearly one of those who opposed halting at Calais, later writing angrily that ‘I do not know whose idea it was that in a port with such strong cross currents and on an open shore could join, for it is not a port in which one could delay without danger.’

Navigation

By the middle of the sixteenth century the Spanish and Portuguese were the acknowledged experts in oceanic navigation, possessing the largest number of skilled pilots and deep sea navigators. Navigation, when out of sight of land, mainly depended upon calculations based upon noon sightings of the sun, with the aid of instruments known as astrolabes or cross staffs and mathematical tables, which would enable the ship’s latitude to be found. It would not be possible to calculate longitude for a further two centuries. Calculations could also be made with the aid of the Pole Star, though if the weather was too thick to allow sightings, then a ship’s position could only be estimated by means of a compass and ‘dead-reckoning’, an inaccurate process.

The Armada anticipated little difficulty in navigating, as most of its voyage was intended to take place in coastal waters, with land frequently in sight, enabling pilots to give an accurate position through the use of sounding leads and pilot books.

The disaster that eventually overwhelmed so many Armada ships off Ireland was the result of desperation forcing them into uncharted coastal waters rather than poor navigation as such.

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