by Bill Fawcett
It took months to build and weeks to organize and bring together the armada. The English had plenty of warning, and its sailing date and mission came as no surprise to them. The sea dogs opposed the armada with just over 150 ships of their own. Many of these were actually armed merchant ships, and almost all of them were what today would be described as privately owned.
The real difference between the ships of Spain and England was the type of cannon they carried and the way the ships were constructed. The limiting factor in cannon size was weight. The bigger the cannon, the greater the weight, which increased much more than the caliber, and there was only so much weight a wooden ship could handle. Each of the opponents approached this limit in a different way. The large Spanish warships, and they had about forty of them, were slow, massive, and made of very thick wood. The cannons on all of the Spanish warships had a very large bore and were short in both length and range. In contrast, the English ships were much more lightly built and much more maneuverable. The cost of this was that they were made of thinner wood and could not carry as much “weight of metal” as the Spanish ships. The English vessels carried cannons that were smaller and much longer than those of the Spanish. This meant they could throw a small cannonball very far and accurately. The problem was that those cannonballs were relatively small and far too often they bounced off the thick sides of the armada’s warships. In addition, size mattered, since the English crews were much smaller, and their ships carried no extra soldiers: This meant that there was no way for them to board and capture the much larger Spanish warships.
So the two battling fleets fought their way up the Channel. The dense mass of the armada made it suicidal for the English sea dogs to approach close enough that their smaller guns would have any effect on the thickly hulled armada. Only by staying at long range did they avoid any damage to themselves. Keeping a disciplined and tight formation, the Spanish Armada was able to sail up the Channel under constant, but ineffective, fire by the English. The armada’s guns fired back as well, but they were unable to hurt the English ships as most of their shots fell short or were off target. This was a victory for the Spanish as their goal was not destruction of the English ships, but rather to transport an army across the Channel. Since the British were unable to stop the armada from sailing up the Channel, it appeared they would be equally unable to stop the same ships from crossing over with the duke of Parma’s army on board. England seemed to be doomed, and Spanish morale soared.
The long fight had used up much of both the Spanish and the English powder and shot. But neither side knew just how low the enemy’s supplies were. Then the weather turned rough. To the Spanish captains, more used to sailing in the relatively placid Mediterranean, a Channel storm, with the rocky French coast nearby, was a frightening threat. Even the English pulled back to give themselves more sea room. The armada anchored along a sheltered part of the French coast near Calais. They kept their tight formation and anchored close to each other for mutual protection. There was only a few hundred feet at most between ships when the first English fire ships appeared. Fire was one of the great dreads of any sailor in the age of wooden hulls and canvas sails. Just about every element of a sailing ship was flammable. One spark could doom a ship in minutes. Cutting their anchor cables, the ships of the armada rushed away from the tar-coated, burning, and possibly gun powder-filled vessels coming at them.
Their rapid rush out of the anchorage meant that the Spanish warships were no longer mutually supportive and in close formation. They found themselves spread out in rough weather, with some ships too far away to be assisted by the others. English sea dogs, such as Francis Drake, gathered in groups of three to as many as ten, and they swarmed the isolated Spanish warships. More than a dozen of the big Spanish galleys were lost and most of the remaining ones were captured, before the armada was able to regroup into an effective defensive formation. Spanish morale was no longer soaring. A decision had to be made on what to do next.
The remaining thirty of the larger ships would likely have been able to escort Parma’s army across the Channel. The ships captured by the English were not going to be ready to fight against their former owners for some time. England could still be conquered. Even if they had to wait a few weeks more than planned for Parma, the plan could still work. But Medina Sidonia made a different choice. He saw that their shot and powder were low and that the armada had nowhere to replenish. He had to suspect the English supply was also low—it was, actually, even worse than that. The English had effectively used the last of their shot and cannonballs attacking the stragglers. But Medina Sidonia did not take the chance that this was the case. The idea of another anchorage with the sea dogs hovering just out of reach likely did not appeal to him.
The commander of the armada decided to abandon the invasion and just get his ships back to Spain. There was always next year. At this point no mistake had been made. The strategy would work, and there was no way for the commander of the armada to know the deplorable status of his opponent’s lockers.
Then Medina Sidonia made a mistake that cost Spain her armada.
The bulk of the armada was sitting low on ammunition, having already lost many of their warships at the top of the English Channel. Below them and between them and Spain was a virtually undamaged mass of English ships whose own ammunition status was unknown. If they were as low on powder and shot as his ships were, the armada could wave as they passed by and reach Spain untouched. If the English had been able to get into their nearby ports and restock, then sailing toward those ships guaranteed the loss of the armada. So instead, Medina Sidonia chose to go the other way. He ordered sailors, experienced only at sailing in the calm and warm Mediterranean and South Atlantic waters, to sail north and return to Spain by sailing around Scotland and Ireland. If the armada had been a marching army, and they had a chance to walk back unopposed, this would have made sense. Being a land commander and looking at the maps, this decision must have seemed like an excellent choice to Medina Sidonia. But the armada was not an army just taking a different route to march back to friendly territory. It was a fleet sailing into unknown and unfamiliar waters. Waters where weather was a factor, and the weather in those North Sea waters was always fierce. A seemingly safe route that would have served an army well on land was a disaster for the armada.
Between the cold northern water and almost two weeks of storms, less than half of the remaining ships in Medina Sidonia’s armada lived to see Spain again. His decision to avoid the sea dogs and go “safely” north changed history. It began the age of English dominance of the seas, and it marked the beginning of the collapse of the Spanish empire. Too much of Spain’s wealth had been spent on the armada, and with the effective loss of control of the seas, the wealth that flowed in from the Indies began to dry up. This was not the only cause for Spain’s economic collapse, but within a few decades after the armada turned north, Spain had been relegated from the leading power of Europe to an incidental player.
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DEAD-END SCIENCE
Phlogiston
1694
Eminent scientists from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries defended the phlogiston explanation of heat and chemical change. One of the best thinkers of his time, George Ernest Stahl, popularized the idea while a professor at the University of Halle from 1694 to 1716. Phlogiston was an “element” said to be contained in all substances that could be burned. It was often described as “inflammable earth.” Phlogiston was used to explain and predict all things relating to heat and fire. Indeed, Joseph Priestley, considered the father of modern chemistry, went to his grave defending the phlogiston theory. It was thought to be a material that did not just contain heat but was itself the heat. Phlogiston was without color, smell, weight, or taste. When you burned something, you were dephlogisticating it—that is, driving all of the phlogiston out of the material. Often this left behind only ash.
Here is how phlogiston seemed to work: Such chemicals as charcoal and sulfur were though
t to be made almost completely of phlogiston. This was because when you burn them there is nothing left except a little ash, which was explained as the impurities in the phlogiston. After all, if you dephlogisticate a material that was made up mostly of some form of the heat itself, there will be little left behind.
Take another illustrative example: If one room was warm and the other cool and you opened a door between them, then the phlogiston, like any gas or liquid, would seek to balance itself between the two rooms. Phlogiston would flow into the cool room and out of the warm, phlogiston-filled room; and since it’s the essence of heat, it would raise the temperature of the cooler room and lower that in the warmer room. Eventually the amount of phlogiston would level out between the two rooms, and they would be the same temperature.
The remarkable thing about this amazing theory was that it seemed to have worked, and it had been used by eminent and respected early scientists for an entire century before it was finally proven wrong. It was not until science progressed to the point that researchers understood the fluid dynamics of the second example and Lavoisier explained the chemical changes that occurred in burning charcoal that the idea of phlogiston died out. This disproving was done by Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier at the end of the eighteenth century. He did this when he discovered oxygen and determined the actual chemical reactions that occur during combustion. Phlogiston theory was perhaps the most persistent, widespread, and totally wrong mistake made by scientists all through the age when science, as we know it today, was developed.
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ALL COURAGE AND NO PLAN
Culloden
1746
On April 16, 1746, about six miles from Inverness, on the Drumossie moor, Bonnie Prince Charlie and his ragtag army of Highlanders faced the duke of Cumberland in what would be the decisive battle in the Jacobite cause. Charlie fought on behalf of his father, the Old Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart, in a bid to seize power from George II. He was expected to lead the Jacobites into glory, thereby laying the ground for what might have been the rebirth of the Scottish nation under Stuart rule. Instead, he led his men to slaughter and forever buried any dreams of a ruling Stuart dynasty.
The Jacobite cause had its beginnings in the Tudor dynasty. When Elizabeth I of England failed to produce an heir, the Scottish king James VI came to rule as king of both England and Scotland. The Stuart dynasty, which traced its lineage back to the daughter of Robert the Bruce, became the supreme ruling power over a united English-Scottish empire. After the Cromwellian takeover and the beheading of Charles I, a new enemy of the people arose—the Catholics, who were viewed with great suspicion. The Anti-Catholic Test Acts, put into commission at the time of Charles II, required that all holders of public office be Protestant.
This posed certain problems for James II, brother and heir to Charles II. James lived in exile in France during the English Civil War and even served in the French army. If being raised as a Frenchman weren’t bad enough, he was also a Catholic. Although his two daughters, Mary and Anne, grew up as Protestants, it was not enough to secure his popularity with the people. He did not have the charm and charisma that his brother had. He also seemed to lack a sense of humor and was even nicknamed “Dismal Jimmie” by the Scots. Suspicions grew when James issued the Declaration of Indulgence establishing freedom of worship for all Catholics.
Opponents of James invited his daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange, to take over as joint rulers of England and Scotland. When William landed and advanced toward London, James fled the country. William and Mary took their oaths of coronation on April 21, 1689. Despite the newly established monarchy, James still had a small group of supporters, mostly in the Scottish Highlands. They were known as the Jacobites (from Jacobus, the Latin version of his name). His only real chance at regaining power came in 1690 in Boyne, Ireland. But James lost his nerve, turned tail, and ran. His lack of courage earned him the Irish nickname Seamus an Chaca, or James the Shite.
The defeat did not silence the Jacobite movement. For the next fifty years, there were plots, skirmishes, revolts, uprisings, and massacres all in the name of Dismal Jimmie. But in 1746 a new champion for the cause swept his way across the British Isles. Though James II had long been deceased, his grandson Charles Edward Stuart decided to take up the challenge. By this time, most of Scotland was apathetic toward the Jacobites. Support for them came mostly from the Highlanders, who were looked on by the city dwellers as being mostly bandits. The rest of the Scottish populace favored the Hanoverian king, George II. And, it should be noted that George was the great-great-grandson of James I, thereby making him a direct descendant of the Stuart line, a fact polished over by many historians. The main objection to him seemed to be more about the fact that he was German and less about his lineage. So, the Italian-born, French-speaking darling of the Highlanders sought to depose him.
The Bonnie prince teamed up with Lord George Murray, who became his field commander. Together, the two took Edinburgh and then trounced Hanoverian forces at Prestonpans. They pressed on to England, where the people feared the worst. There was a run on the bank in London and general panic ensued. The panic proved to be premature. When Charlie realized he had no support in England, he turned his forces around just 100 miles outside of London and headed back to Scotland. He decided to go head-to-head with the king’s son, William Augustus, the duke of Cumberland. So far, Charlie had been considerably lucky. He controlled much of Scotland and had his followers convinced he could easily take the rest. But facing a force of 9,000 trained British soldiers with 5,000 untrained Highlanders was folly. Going against the advice of Lord Murray, the prince continued onward and concentrated his forces on the Drumossie moor near Culloden house. He lay in wait for the British army to arrive.
It seems the duke had better things to do than fight a battle with the rebellious Scots. He stopped eight miles away in Nairn to celebrate his twenty-fifth birthday. When Charlie heard this, he decided to surprise the duke. He gathered his troops and attempted to march over the moors at night. The march proved too challenging for the tired, starving Highlanders, so they turned around and went back to their original position. They had exhausted themselves on the long trek through the moors and were ill-prepared for the battle yet to come. The following morning, the duke met up with the Jacobite forces.
His actions were well calculated and well implemented. He began with a barrage of artillery aimed directly at the Highland infantry. To parry the onslaught, the infantry ran full-on toward the enemy. The British infantry made ready. They stood fast in three ranks, one kneeling, the next stooping, and the third standing. Cumberland had another trick up his sleeve. He had trained his men to attack to their left in order to evade the Highlanders’ target, while thrusting under the sword arm. His plan was effective. Hanoverian forces rendered the Highlanders’ assault on the left flank useless and managed to outflank them on the right. The Jacobites began a hasty retreat. In the end, 1,000 Highlanders lost their lives and 1,000 more were taken prisoner.
The Battle of Culloden
Charlie became a fugitive with a £30,000 price on his head. He eventually made his way back to France and died a rather anticlimactic death four decades later, after many years of drowning his sorrows in the bottle and reminiscing on what might have been. Had he been more patient, the Bonnie prince might have become the reigning king of an independent Scottish nation. He needed only to concentrate his efforts in the north instead of trying to gather support in the staunchly Hanoverian English counties. Because of his poor judgment and lack of skills as a military leader, Charles ensured that the Jacobite cause would be lost in the annals of history forever.
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POOR PRIORITIES
Party Time
1776
The revolution by the American colonists was just about over. The revolt had begun with a number of successes. When those victories failed to get the Coercive Acts, stamp tax, quartering of soldiers, and takeover of the courts rescinded by th
e British Parliament, the cry for rights changed into a demand for independence. But just as the Continental Congress passed the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, the tide turned.
On July 4, the first 10,000 of 30,000 veteran soldiers were carried to New York City by the Royal Navy. These were veteran red-coats who had conquered India, parts of China, a good portion of Africa, and the rest of the British empire. Lord Howe and his experienced regulars quickly won three battles and drove Washington’s army from the colony’s largest and most important city. Washington was driven from New York and then New Jersey. His army was broken and supplies were dwindling. Only the onset of winter forced Howe to go into winter quarters and allowed the rebels to escape to a primitive camp at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
Many of the soldiers at Valley Forge had enlisted with Washington after his capture of Boston that last spring. After months of defeat and retreat their morale was beyond poor. Desertion was a problem and hard to prevent. There seemed little risk in deserting a rebel army that was close to total defeat. The risk of staying with it and being punished by the victorious crown seemed a greater threat.
No one wanted to back a loser. The financiers of the revolution risked retaliation that included loss of their wealth and even hanging. The price was too high when defeat seemed all but certain. So the revolution’s finances and credit were disappearing. The soldiers at Valley Forge were short everything from food to clothing.