Spanish Point. The sad history of the Spanish "Invincible" Armada in 1588. скачать в хорошем качестве

Spanish Point. The sad history of the Spanish "Invincible" Armada in 1588.

Spanish Point is a small town on the west coast of Ireland, in County Clare. Near here part of The invincible Spanish Armada of King Phillip was shipwrecked on its way to invade England in 1588. The name of the Hotel Armada in Spanish Point attests to the locals’ fond memory of the many Spanish survivors who hid in their houses from British authorities who were out to kill them. In the summer of 1588, Phillip II sent ships from his “Great and Most Happy Armada” to Flanders to pick up 30,000 Spanish soldiers in preparation for an invasion of England. The plan was to overthrow Queen Elizabeth, whom he held responsible for the execution of Queen Mary Stuart, who was a Catholic ally. His fleet of 127 ships was lead by Alonso Perez de Guzman, a nobleman with neither the will nor the expertise necessary for the undertaking. As was to be expected, it ended in disaster. An English fleet confronted the ships in the British Channel, causing relatively minor damage to the Spanish endeavor. After a brief skirmish, the British withdrew to the safety of the English coast as the Spanish tried to retreat to the French Coast. The Spanish had lost no more than four ships and three hundred men in the battle, but the British exaggerated the importance of the encounter. Mocking their opponent, they sarcastically dubbed the Spanish fleet “Invincible,” a name by which it is still remembered. The real threat to the Armada came later in the form of a storm, and the fleet never made it to Flanders. With inadequate nautical charts and no knowledge of sea currents, the ships were dispersed, some of them lost, in the waters between Great Britain and Ireland. From there some ships returned to Spain. Others sailed up and westward around Ireland, following sea currents, only to face another set of storms. Some sought refuge in the rough Western coast of Ireland. Most of these ended up shipwrecked. The fate of those who landed varied. Some were taken in by the Irish, being seen as liberators. A few were aided in their escape to Spanish friendly Scotland. But most were not so fortunate. British authorities in Ireland ordered any Spaniard who landed to be taken prisoner and executed. It was calculated that more than ten times as many Spanish died at the hands of British in Ireland than at sea fighting the British navy. On the west coast of Ireland you can still hear the sad story of Spanish soldiers and sailors who barely survived, some of whom settled and stayed on. What option did they have? In Dingle it is said that there are more dark haired people in the region than all the rest of Ireland, a legacy of that fateful Spanish Armada’s disaster.