title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: During the 1920s and 1930s, Borges was a vocal supporter of Hipólito Yrigoyen and the social democratic Radical Civic Union. In 1945, Borges signed a manifesto calling for an end to military rule and the establishment of political liberty and democratic elections. By the 1960s, he had grown more skeptical of democracy. During a 1971 conference at Columbia University, a creative writing student asked Borges what he regarded as "a writer's duty to his time". Borges replied, "I think a writer's duty is to be a writer, and if he can be a good writer, he is doing his duty. Besides, I think of my own opinions as being superficial. For example, I am a Conservative, I hate the Communists, I hate the Nazis, I hate the anti-Semites, and so on; but I don't allow these opinions to find their way into my writings—except, of course, when I was greatly elated about the Six-Day War. Generally speaking, I think of keeping them in watertight compartments. Everybody knows my opinions, but as for my dreams and my stories, they should be allowed their full freedom, I think. I don't want to intrude into them, I'm writing fiction, not fables." In the 1980s, towards the end of his life, Borges regained his earlier faith in democracy and held it out as the only hope for Argentina. In 1983, Borges applauded the election of the Radical Civic Union's Raúl Alfonsín and welcomed the end of military rule with the following words: "I once wrote that democracy is the abuse of statistics ... On October 30, 1983, Argentine democracy refuted me splendidly. Splendidly and resoundingly."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges recurrently declared himself a "Spencerian anarchist who believes in the individual and not in the State" due to his father's influence. In an interview with Richard Burgin during the late 1960s, Borges described himself as a "mild" adherent of classical liberalism. He further recalled that his opposition to communism and to Marxism was absorbed in his childhood, stating: "Well, I have been brought up to think that the individual should be strong and the State should be weak. I couldn't be enthusiastic about theories where the State is more important than the individual." After the overthrow via coup d'état of President Juan Domingo Perón in 1955, Borges supported efforts to purge Argentina's Government of Peronists and dismantle the former President's welfare state. He was enraged that the Communist Party of Argentina opposed these measures and sharply criticized them in lectures and in print. Borges's opposition to the Party in this matter ultimately led to a permanent rift with his longtime lover, Argentine Communist Estela Canto.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In a 1956 interview given to "El Hogar", he stated that "[Communists] are in favor of totalitarian regimes and systematically combat freedom of thought, oblivious of the fact that the principal victims of dictatorships are, precisely, intelligence and culture." Borges elaborated: "Many people are in favor of dictatorships because they allow them to avoid thinking for themselves. Everything is presented to them ready-made. There are even agencies of the State that supply them with opinions, passwords, slogans, and even idols to exalt or cast down according to the prevailing wind or in keeping with the directives of the thinking heads of the single party."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In later years, Borges frequently expressed contempt for Marxist and Communist authors, poets, and intellectuals. In an interview with Burgin, Borges referred to Chilean poet Pablo Neruda as "a very fine poet" but a "very mean man" for unconditionally supporting the Soviet Union and demonizing the United States. Borges commented about Neruda, "Now he knows that's rubbish."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In the same interview, Borges also criticized famed poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, who was abducted by Nationalist soldiers and executed without trial during the Spanish Civil War. In Borges's opinion, Lorca's poetry and plays, when examined against his tragic death, appeared better than they actually were.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In 1934, Argentine ultra-nationalists, sympathetic to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, asserted Borges was secretly Jewish, and by implication, not truly Argentinian. Borges responded with the essay "Yo, Judío" ("I, a Jew"), a reference to the old phrase "Yo, Argentino" ("I, an Argentine") uttered by potential victims during pogroms against Argentine Jews, to signify one was not Jewish. In the essay, Borges declares he would be proud to be a Jew, and remarks that any pure Castilian is likely to come from ancient Jewish descent, from a millennium ago.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Both before and during the Second World War, Borges regularly published essays attacking the Nazi police state and its racist ideology. His outrage was fueled by his deep love for German literature. In an essay published in 1937, Borges attacked the Nazi Party's use of children's books to inflame antisemitism. He wrote, "I don't know if the world can do without German civilization, but I do know that its corruption by the teachings of hatred is a crime."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In a 1938 essay, Borges reviewed an anthology which rewrote German authors of the past to fit the Nazi party line. He was disgusted by what he described as Germany's "chaotic descent into darkness" and the attendant rewriting of history. He argued that such books sacrificed the German people's culture, history and integrity in the name of restoring their national honour. Such use of children's books for propaganda he writes, "perfect the criminal arts of barbarians."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In 1946, Borges published the short story "Deutsches Requiem", which masquerades as the last testament of a condemned Nazi war criminal named Otto Dietrich zur Linde.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In a 1971 conference at Columbia University, Borges was asked about the story by a student from the creative writing program. He recalled, "When the Germans were defeated I felt great joy and relief, but at the same time I thought of the German defeat as being somehow tragic, because here we have perhaps the most educated people in Europe, who have a fine literature, a fine tradition of philosophy and poetry. Yet these people were bamboozled by a madman named Adolf Hitler, and I think there is tragedy there."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In a 1967 interview with Burgin, Borges recalled how his interactions with Argentina's Nazi sympathisers led him to create the story. He recalled, "And then I realized that those people that were on the side of Germany, that they never thought of German victories or the German glory. What they really liked was the idea of the Blitzkrieg, of London being on fire, of the country being destroyed. As to the German fighters, they took no stock in them. Then I thought, well now Germany has lost, now America has saved us from this nightmare, but since nobody can doubt on which side I stood, I'll see what can be done from a literary point of view in favor of the Nazis. And then I created the ideal Nazi."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: At Columbia University in 1971, Borges further elaborated on the story's creation, "I tried to imagine what a real Nazi might be like. I mean someone who thought of violence as being praiseworthy for its own sake. Then I thought that this archetype of the Nazis wouldn't mind being defeated; after all, defeats and victories are mere matters of chance. He would still be glad of the fact, even if the Americans and British won the war. Naturally, when I am with Nazis, I find they are not my idea of what a Nazi is, but this wasn't meant to be a political tract. It was meant to stand for the fact that there was something tragic in the fate of a real Nazi. Except that I wonder if a real Nazi ever existed. At least, when I went to Germany, I never met one. They were all feeling sorry for themselves and wanted me to feel sorry for them as well."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In 1946, Argentine President Juan Perón began transforming Argentina into a one-party state with the assistance of his wife, Evita. Almost immediately, the spoils system was the rule of the day, as ideological critics of the ruling "Partido Justicialista" were fired from government jobs. During this period, Borges was informed that he was being "promoted" from his position at the Miguel Cané Library to a post as inspector of poultry and rabbits at the Buenos Aires municipal market. Upon demanding to know the reason, Borges was told, "Well, you were on the side of the Allies, what do you expect?" Borges resigned the following day.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Perón's treatment of Borges became a cause célèbre for the Argentine intelligentsia. The Argentine Society of Writers (SADE) held a formal dinner in his honour. At the dinner, a speech was read which Borges had written for the occasion. It said:


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In the aftermath, Borges found himself much in demand as a lecturer and one of the intellectual leaders of the Argentine opposition. In 1951 he was asked by anti-Peronist friends to run for president of SADE. Borges, then having depression caused by a failed romance, reluctantly accepted. He later recalled that he would awake every morning and remember that Perón was president and feel deeply depressed and ashamed. Perón's government had seized control of the Argentine mass media and regarded SADE with indifference. Borges later recalled, however, "Many distinguished men of letters did not dare set foot inside its doors." Meanwhile, SADE became an increasing refuge for critics of the regime. SADE official Luisa Mercedes Levinson noted, "We would gather every week to tell the latest jokes about the ruling couple and even dared to sing the songs of the French Resistance, as well as 'La Marseillaise'".


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: After Evita Perón's death on 26 July 1952, Borges received a visit from two policemen, who ordered him to put up two portraits of the ruling couple on the premises of SADE. Borges indignantly refused, calling it a ridiculous demand. The policemen replied that he would soon face the consequences. The Justicialist Party placed Borges under 24-hour surveillance and sent policemen to sit in on his lectures; in September they ordered SADE to be permanently closed down. Like much of the Argentine opposition to Perón, SADE had become marginalized due to persecution by the State, and very few active members remained.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: On 16 September 1955, General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu's "Revolución Libertadora" toppled the ruling party and forced Perón into exile. Borges was overjoyed and joined demonstrators marching through the streets of Buenos Aires. According to Williamson, Borges shouted, "Viva la Patria", until his voice grew hoarse. Due to the influence of Borges's mother and his own role on the opposition to Peron, the provisional government appointed Borges as the Director of the National Library.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In his essay "L'Illusion Comique", Borges wrote there were two histories of Peronism in Argentina. The first he described as "the criminal one", composed of the police state tactics used against both real and imagined anti-Peronists. The second history was, according to Borges, "the theatrical one" composed of "tales and fables made for consumption by dolts." He argued that, despite their claims to detest capitalism, Juan and Eva Perón "copied its methods, dictating names and slogans to the people" in the same way that multi-national corporations "impose their razor blades, cigarettes, and washing machines." Borges then listed the numerous conspiracy theories the ruling couple dictated to their followers and how those theories were accepted without question.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In a 1967 interview, Borges said, "Perón was a humbug, and he knew it, and everybody knew it. But Perón could be very cruel. I mean, he had people tortured, killed. And his wife was a common prostitute."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: When Perón returned from exile in 1973 and regained the Presidency, Borges was enraged. In a 1975 interview for "National Geographic", he said "Damn, the snobs are back in the saddle. If their posters and slogans again defile the city, I'll be glad I've lost my sight. Well, they can't humiliate me as they did before my books sold well."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: After being accused of being unforgiving, Borges quipped, "I resented Perón's making Argentina look ridiculous to the world ... as in 1951, when he announced control over thermonuclear fusion, which still hasn't happened anywhere but in the sun and the stars. For a time, Argentines hesitated to wear band aids for fear friends would ask, 'Did the atomic bomb go off in your hand?' A shame, because Argentina really has world-class scientists."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: After Borges's death in 1986, the Peronist "Partido Justicialista" declined to send a delegate to the writer's memorial service in Buenos Aires. A spokesman for the Party said that this was in reaction to "certain declarations he had made about the country." Later, at the City Council of Buenos Aires, Peronist politicians refused to honor Borges as an Argentine, commenting that he "chose to die abroad." When infuriated politicians from the other parties demanded to know the real reason, the Peronists finally explained that Borges had made statements about Evita Perón which they called "unacceptable".


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: During the 1970s, Borges at first expressed support for Argentina's military junta, but was scandalized by the junta's actions during the Dirty War. In protest against their support of the regime, Borges ceased publishing in the newspaper "La Nación".


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In 1985, he wrote a short poem about the Falklands War called "Juan López y John Ward", about two fictional soldiers (one from each side), who died in the Falklands, in which he refers to "islands that were too famous". He also said about the war: "The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges was an observer at the trials of the military junta in 1985 and wrote that "not to judge and condemn the crimes would be to encourage impunity and to become, somehow, its accomplice." Borges added that "the news of the missing people, the crimes and atrocities [the military] committed" had inspired him to return to his earlier Emersonian faith in democracy.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: “There’s no native tradition of any kind since the Indians here were mere barbarians. We have to fall back on the European tradition, why not? It’s a very fine tradition.”


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort argue that Borges "may have been the most important figure in Spanish-language literature since Cervantes. He was clearly of tremendous influence, writing intricate poems, short stories, and essays that instantiated concepts of dizzying power." Borges's work has been compared to that of Homer and Milton. Indeed, the critic Harold Bloom numbers Borges among the key figures of the Western literary canon.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In addition to short stories for which he is most noted, Borges also wrote poetry, essays, screenplays, literary criticism, and edited numerous anthologies. His longest work of fiction is a fourteen-page story, "The Congress", first published in 1971. His late-onset blindness strongly influenced his later writing. Borges wrote: "When I think of what I've lost, I ask, 'Who know themselves better than the blind?' – for every thought becomes a tool."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Paramount among his intellectual interests are elements of mythology, mathematics, theology, integrating these through literature, sometimes playfully, sometimes with great seriousness.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges composed poetry throughout his life. As his eyesight waned (it came and went, with a struggle between advancing age and advances in eye surgery), he increasingly focused on writing poetry, since he could memorize an entire work in progress.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: His poems embrace the same wide range of interests as his fiction, along with issues that emerge in his critical works and translations, and from more personal musings. For example, his interest in idealism runs through his work, reflected in the fictional world of Tlön in "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and in his essay "A New Refutation of Time".


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges was a notable translator. He translated works of literature in English, French, German, Old English, and Old Norse into Spanish. His first publication, for a Buenos Aires newspaper, was a translation of Oscar Wilde's story "The Happy Prince" into Spanish when he was nine. At the end of his life he produced a Spanish-language version of a part of Snorri Sturluson's "Prose Edda". He also translated (while simultaneously subtly transforming) the works of, among others, Ambrose Bierce, William Faulkner, André Gide, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and Virginia Woolf. Borges wrote and lectured extensively on the art of translation, holding that a translation may improve upon the original, may even be unfaithful to it, and that alternative and potentially contradictory renderings of the same work can be equally valid. Borges employed the devices of literary forgery and the review of an imaginary work, both forms of modern pseudo-epigrapha.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges's best-known set of literary forgeries date from his early work as a translator and literary critic with a regular column in the Argentine magazine "El Hogar". Along with publishing numerous legitimate translations, he also published original works, for example, in the style of Emanuel Swedenborg or " One Thousand and One Nights", originally claiming them to be translations of works he had chanced upon. In another case, he added three short, falsely attributed pieces into his otherwise legitimate and carefully researched anthology "El matrero". Several of these are gathered in the "A Universal History of Infamy".


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: While Borges was the great popularizer of the review of an imaginary work, he had developed the idea from Thomas Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus", a book-length review of a non-existent German transcendentalist work, and the biography of its equally non-existent author. In "This Craft of Verse", Borges says that in 1916 in Geneva "[I] discovered, and was overwhelmed by, Thomas Carlyle. I read "Sartor Resartus", and I can recall many of its pages; I know them by heart."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In the introduction to his first published volume of fiction, "The Garden of Forking Paths", Borges remarks, "It is a laborious madness and an impoverishing one, the madness of composing vast books, setting out in five hundred pages an idea that can be perfectly related orally in five minutes. The better way to go about it is to pretend that those books already exist, and offer a summary, a commentary on them." He then cites both "Sartor Resartus" and Samuel Butler's "The Fair Haven", remarking, however, that "those works suffer under the imperfection that they themselves are books, and not a whit less tautological than the others. A more reasonable, more inept, and more lazy man, I have chosen to write "notes" on imaginary books."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges's change in style from regionalist "criollismo" to a more cosmopolitan style brought him much criticism from journals such as "", a leftist, Sartre-influenced Argentine publication founded by David Viñas and his brother, along with other intellectuals such as Noé Jitrik and Adolfo Prieto. In the post-Peronist Argentina of the early 1960s, "Contorno" met with wide approval from the youth who challenged the authenticity of older writers such as Borges and questioned their legacy of experimentation. Magic realism and exploration of universal truths, they argued, had come at the cost of responsibility and seriousness in the face of society's problems.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: The "Contorno" writers acknowledged Borges and Eduardo Mallea for being "doctors of technique" but argued that their work lacked substance due to their lack of interaction with the reality that they inhabited, an existentialist critique of their refusal to embrace existence and reality in their artwork.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: The story "The Sect of the Phoenix" is famously interpreted to allude to the ubiquity of sexual intercourse among humans – a concept whose essential qualities the narrator of the story is not able to relate to.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: With a few notable exceptions, women are almost entirely absent from Borges's fiction. However, there are some instances in Borges's later writings of romantic love, for example the story "Ulrikke" from "The Book of Sand". The protagonist of the story "El muerto" also lusts after the "splendid, contemptuous, red-haired woman" of Azevedo Bandeira and later "sleeps with the woman with shining hair". Although they do not appear in the stories, women are significantly discussed as objects of unrequited love in his short stories "The Zahir" and "The Aleph". The plot of "La Intrusa" was based on a true story of two friends. Borges turned their fictional counterparts into brothers, excluding the possibility of a homosexual relationship.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: "Emma Zunz" is Borges's only story with a female protagonist. Originally published in 1948, this work tells the tale of a young Jewish woman who kills a man in order to avenge the disgrace and suicide of her father. She carefully plans the crime, submitting to an unpleasant sexual encounter with a stranger in order to create the appearance of sexual impropriety in her intended victim. Despite the fact that she premeditates and executes a murder, the eponymous heroine of this story is surprisingly likable, both because of intrinsic qualities in the character (interestingly enough, she believes in nonviolence) and because the story is narrated from a "remote but sympathetic" point of view that highlights the poignancy of her situation.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges was never awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, something which continually distressed the writer. He was one of several distinguished authors who never received the honour. Borges commented, "Not granting me the Nobel Prize has become a Scandinavian tradition; since I was born they have not been granting it to me".


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Some observers speculated that Borges did not receive the award in his later life because of his conservative political views, or, more specifically, because he had accepted an honour from Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges was however among the short-listed candidates several times. In 1965 he was considered along with Vladimir Nabokov, Pablo Neruda and Mikhail Sholokhov, and in 1966 a shared prize to Borges and Miguel Ángel Asturias was proposed. Borges was nominated again in 1967, and was among the final three choices considered by the committee, according to Nobel records unsealed on the 50th anniversary, in 2017. The committee considered Borges, Graham Greene and Miguel Ángel Asturias, with the last chosen winner.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Many of Borges's best-known stories deal with themes of time ("The Secret Miracle"), infinity ("The Aleph"), mirrors ("Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius") and labyrinths ("The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths", "The House of Asterion", "The Immortal", "The Garden of Forking Paths"). Williamson writes, "His basic contention was that fiction did not depend on the illusion of reality; what mattered ultimately was an author's ability to generate 'poetic faith' in his reader."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: His stories often have fantastical themes, such as a library containing every possible 410-page text ("The Library of Babel"), a man who forgets nothing he experiences ("Funes, the Memorious"), an artifact through which the user can see everything in the universe ("The Aleph"), and a year of still time given to a man standing before a firing squad ("The Secret Miracle"). Borges told realistic stories of South American life, of folk heroes, streetfighters, soldiers, gauchos, detectives, and historical figures. He mixed the real and the fantastic, fact with fiction. His interest in compounding fantasy, philosophy, and the art of translation are evident in articles such as "The Translators of "The Book of One Thousand and One Nights"". In the "Book of Imaginary Beings", a thoroughly researched bestiary of mythical creatures, Borges wrote, "There is a kind of lazy pleasure in useless and out-of-the-way erudition." Borges's interest in fantasy was shared by Bioy Casares, with whom he coauthored several collections of tales between 1942 and 1967.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Often, especially early in his career, the mixture of fact and fantasy crossed the line into the realm of hoax or literary forgery.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: "The Garden of Forking Paths" (1941) presents the idea of forking paths through networks of time, none of which is the same, all of which are equal. Borges uses the recurring image of "a labyrinth that folds back upon itself in infinite regression" so we "become aware of all the possible choices we might make." The forking paths have branches to represent these choices that ultimately lead to different endings. Borges saw man's search for meaning in a seemingly infinite universe as fruitless and instead uses the maze as a riddle for time, not space. He examined the themes of universal randomness ("The Lottery in Babylon") and madness ("The Zahir"). Due to the success of the "Forking Paths" story, the term "Borgesian" came to reflect a quality of narrative non-linearity.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: The philosophical term "Borgesian conundrum" is named after him and has been defined as the ontological question of "whether the writer writes the story, or it writes him." The original concept was put forward by Borges in his essay "Kafka and His Precursors". After reviewing works that were written before those of Kafka, Borges wrote:


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Along with other young Argentine writers of his generation, Borges initially rallied around the fictional character of Martín Fierro. "Martín Fierro", a poem by José Hernández, was a dominant work of 19th century Argentine literature. Its eponymous hero became a symbol of Argentine sensibility, untied from European values – a gaucho, free, poor, "pampas"-dwelling.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: The character Fierro is illegally drafted to serve at a border fort to defend it against the indigenous population but ultimately deserts to become a "gaucho matrero", the Argentine equivalent of a North American western outlaw. Borges contributed keenly to the avant garde "Martín Fierro magazine" in the early 1920s.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: As Borges matured, he came to a more nuanced attitude toward the Hernández poem. In his book of essays on the poem, Borges separates his admiration for the aesthetic virtues of the work from his mixed opinion of the moral virtues of its protagonist. In his essay "The Argentine Writer and Tradition" (1951), Borges celebrates how Hernández expresses the Argentine character. In a key scene in the poem, Martín Fierro and El Moreno compete by improvising songs on universal themes such as time, night, and the sea, reflecting the real-world gaucho tradition of "payadas", improvised musical dialogues on philosophical themes. Borges points out that Hernández evidently knew the difference between actual gaucho tradition of composing poetry versus the "gauchesque" fashion among Buenos Aires literati.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In his works he refutes the arch-nationalist interpreters of the poem and disdains others, such as critic Eleuterio Tiscornia, for their Europeanising approach. Borges denies that Argentine literature should distinguish itself by limiting itself to "local colour", which he equates with cultural nationalism. Racine and Shakespeare's work, he says, looked beyond their countries' borders. Neither, he argues, need the literature be bound to the heritage of old world Spanish or European tradition. Nor should it define itself by the conscious rejection of its colonial past. He asserts that Argentine writers need to be free to define Argentine literature anew, writing about Argentina and the world from the point of view of those who have inherited the whole of world literature. Williamson says "Borges's main argument is that the very fact of writing from the margins provides Argentine writers with a special opportunity to innovate without being bound to the canons of the centre, ... at once a part of and apart from the centre, which gives them much potential freedom".


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges focused on universal themes, but also composed a substantial body of literature on themes from Argentine folklore and history. His first book, the poetry collection "Fervor de Buenos Aires" ("Passion for Buenos Aires"), appeared in 1923. Borges's writings on things Argentine include Argentine culture ("History of the Tango"; "Inscriptions on Horse Wagons"), folklore ("Juan Muraña", "Night of the Gifts"), literature ("The Argentine Writer and Tradition", "Almafuerte"; "Evaristo Carriego"), and national concerns ("Celebration of the Monster", "Hurry, Hurry", "The Mountebank", "Pedro Salvadores"). Ultranationalists, however, continued to question his Argentine identity.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges's interest in Argentine themes reflects, in part, the inspiration of his family tree. Borges had an English paternal grandmother who, around 1870, married the "criollo" Francisco Borges, a man with a military command and a historic role in the Argentine Civil Wars in what are now Argentina and Uruguay.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Spurred by pride in his family's heritage, Borges often used those civil wars as settings in fiction and quasi-fiction (for example, "The Life of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz," "The Dead Man," "Avelino Arredondo") as well as poetry ("General Quiroga Rides to His Death in a Carriage"). Borges's maternal great-grandfather, Manuel Isidoro Suárez, was another military hero, whom Borges immortalized in the poem "A Page to Commemorate Colonel Suárez, Victor at Junín".


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: His nonfiction explores many of the themes found in his fiction. Essays such as "The History of the Tango" or his writings on the epic poem "Martín Fierro" explore Argentine themes, such as the identity of the Argentine people and of various Argentine subcultures. The varying genealogies of characters, settings, and themes in his stories, such as "La muerte y la brújula", used Argentine models without pandering to his readers or framing Argentine culture as "exotic".


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In fact, contrary to what is usually supposed, the geographies found in his fictions often do not correspond to those of real-world Argentina. In his essay "El escritor argentino y la tradición", Borges notes that the very absence of camels in the Qur'an was proof enough that it was an Arabian work (despite the fact that camels are, in fact, mentioned in the Qur'an). He suggested that only someone trying to write an "Arab" work would purposefully include a camel. He uses this example to illustrate how his dialogue with universal existential concerns was just as Argentine as writing about gauchos and tangos.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: At the time of the Argentine Declaration of Independence in 1816, the population was predominantly "criollo" (of Spanish ancestry). From the mid-1850s on waves of immigration from Europe, especially Italy and Spain, arrived in the country, and in the following decades the Argentine national identity diversified. Borges was writing in a strongly European literary context, immersed in Spanish, English, French, German, Italian, Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse literature. He also read translations of Near Eastern and Far Eastern works. Borges's writing is also informed by scholarship of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism, including prominent religious figures, heretics, and mystics.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Religion and heresy are explored in such stories as "Averroes's Search", "The Writing of the God", "The Theologians", and "Three Versions of Judas". The curious inversion of mainstream Christian concepts of redemption in the last story is characteristic of Borges's approach to theology in his literature.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In describing himself, he said, "I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited, all my ancestors." As a young man, he visited the frontier "pampas" which extend beyond Argentina into Uruguay and Brazil. Borges said that his father wished him "to become a citizen of the world, a great cosmopolitan," in the way of Henry and William James.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges lived and studied in Switzerland and Spain as a young student. As Borges matured, he traveled through Argentina as a lecturer and, internationally, as a visiting professor; he continued to tour the world as he grew older, finally settling in Geneva where he had spent some of his youth. Drawing on the influence of many times and places, Borges's work belittled nationalism and racism. However, Borges also scorned his own Basque ancestry and criticised the abolition of slavery in America because he believed black people were happier remaining uneducated and without freedom. Portraits of diverse coexisting cultures characteristic of Argentina are especially pronounced in the book "Six Problems for don Isidoro Parodi" (co-authored with Bioy Casares) and "Death and the Compass". Borges wrote that he considered Mexican writer Alfonso Reyes to be "the best prose-writer in the Spanish language of any time."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges was also an admirer of Asian culture, e.g. the ancient Chinese board game of Go, about which he penned some verses, while The Garden of Forking Paths had a strong Chinese theme.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Borges was rooted in the Modernism predominant in its early years and was influenced by Symbolism. Like Vladimir Nabokov and James Joyce, he combined an interest in his native culture with broader perspectives, also sharing their multilingualism and inventiveness with language. However, while Nabokov and Joyce tended toward progressively larger works, Borges remained a miniaturist. His work progressed "away" from what he referred to as "the baroque": his later style is far more transparent and naturalistic than his earlier works. Borges represented the humanist view of media that stressed the social aspect of art driven by emotion. If art represented the tool, then Borges was more interested in how the tool could be used to relate to people.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Existentialism saw its apogee during the years of Borges's greatest artistic production. It has been argued that his choice of topics largely ignored existentialism's central tenets. Critic Paul de Man notes, "Whatever Borges's existential anxieties may be, they have little in common with Sartre's robustly prosaic view of literature, with the earnestness of Camus' moralism, or with the weighty profundity of German existential thought. Rather, they are the consistent expansion of a purely poetic consciousness to its furthest limits."


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: The essay collection "Borges y la Matemática" (Borges and Mathematics, 2003) by Argentine mathematician and writer Guillermo Martínez outlines how Borges used concepts from mathematics in his work. Martínez states that Borges had, for example, at least a superficial knowledge of set theory, which he handles with elegance in stories such as "The Book of Sand". Other books such as "The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel" by William Goldbloom Bloch (2008) and "Unthinking Thinking: Jorge Luis Borges, Mathematics, and the New Physics" by Floyd Merrell (1991) also explore this relationship.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: Fritz Mauthner, philosopher of language and author of the "Wörterbuch der Philosophie" ("Dictionary of Philosophy"), had an important influence on Borges. Borges always recognized the influence of this German philosopher. According to the literary review "Sur," the book was one of the five books most noted and read by Borges. The first time that Borges mentioned Mauthner was in 1928 in his book "The language of the Argentines" (El idioma de los argentinos). In a 1962 interview Borges described Mauthner as possessing a fine sense of humor as well as great knowledge and erudition.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: In an interview, Denis Dutton asked Borges who were the "philosophers who have influenced your works, in whom you’ve been the most interested". In reply, Borges named Berkeley and Schopenhauer.


title: Jorge Luis Borges

text: It is not without humour that Borges once wrote “Siempre imaginé que el Paraíso sería algún tipo de biblioteca.” (I always imagined Paradise to be some kind of a library.)


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Prince John (John Charles Francis; 12 July 1905 – 18 January 1919) was the fifth son and youngest of the six children of King George V and Queen Mary. At the time of his birth, his father was heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom, King Edward VII. In 1910, the Prince of Wales succeeded to the throne upon Edward VII's death and Prince John became fifth in the line of succession to the British throne.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: In 1909, John was discovered to have epilepsy. As his condition deteriorated, he was sent to live at Sandringham House in 1916 and was kept away from the public eye. There, he was cared for by his governess, "Lala" Bill, and befriended local children whom his mother had gathered to be his playmates. He died at Sandringham in 1919, following a severe seizure, and was buried at nearby St Mary Magdalene Church. His illness was disclosed to the wider public only after his death.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: John's seclusion has subsequently been brought forward as evidence of inhumanity by the royal family. Contrary to the belief that he was hidden from the public from an early age, however, John for most of his life had the role of a fully fledged member of the family, appearing frequently in public until after his eleventh birthday, when his condition became severe.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: He was named "John" despite that name's unlucky associations for the royal family, but was informally known as "Johnnie".


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: At the time of his birth, he was sixth in the line of succession to the throne, behind his father and four older brothers. As a grandchild of the reigning British monarch in the male line, and a son of the Prince of Wales, he was formally styled "His Royal Highness Prince John of Wales" from birth.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: John was christened on 3 August 1905 in the parish church of St Mary Magdalene at Sandringham, the Reverend Canon John Neale Dalton officiating.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: His godparents were King Carlos I of Portugal; John's uncles Prince Carl of Denmark and Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife; his great-granduncle Prince Johann of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg; and three of his first cousins once removed, the Duke and Duchess of Sparta and Princess Alexander of Teck. John's father stood proxy for King Carlos, Prince Carl, Prince Johann and the Duke of Fife, while John's aunt Princess Victoria stood proxy for the Duchess of Sparta and Princess Alexander.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Much of John's early life was spent at Sandringham with his siblingsPrince Edward (known as David to the royal family), Prince Albert, Princess Mary, Prince Henry and Prince Georgeunder the care of their nanny Charlotte "Lala" Bill.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Though a strict disciplinarian, John's father was nonetheless affectionate toward his children; John's mother was close to her children and encouraged them to confide in her.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: In 1909, Prince John's grandaunt, the Dowager Empress of Russia wrote to her son, Emperor Nicholas II, that "George's children are very nice... The little ones, George and Johnny are both charming and very amusing..." John's aunt Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, described him as "very quaint and one evening when Uncle George returned from stalking he bent over Aunt May and kissed her, and they heard Johnny soliloquize, 'She kissed Papa, ugly old man! George V once said to U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt that "all [his] children [were] obedient, except John"apparently because he alone, among the King's children, escaped punishment from their father.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Though a "large and handsome" baby, John had become "winsome" and "painfully slow" by his fourth birthday.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: That same year he had his first epileptic seizure and showed signs of a disability, probably autism or learning disabilities. When his father became king, John did not attend his parents' coronation on 22 June 1911, as this was considered too risky for his health; nonetheless, cynics said that the family feared their reputation would be damaged by any incident involving him. Although Prince John was deemed not "presentable to the outside world," the King nonetheless showed an interest in his youngest son, offering him "kindness and affection".


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: During his time at Sandringham, John exhibited some repetitive behaviours as well as regular misbehaviours and insubordination: "he simply didn't understand he needed to [behave]." Nonetheless, there was hope his seizures might lessen with time. Contrary to the belief that he was hidden from the public from an early age, Prince John for most of his life was a "fully-fledged member of the family", appearing frequently in public until after his eleventh birthday.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: In 1912 Prince George, John's closest sibling, began St Peter's Court Preparatory School at Broadstairs. The following summer, "The Times" reported that Prince John would not attend Broadstairs the following term, and that his parents had not decided whether to send him to school at all. After the outbreak of World War I, he rarely saw his parents, who were often away on official duties, and his siblings, who were either at boarding school or in the military. He slowly disappeared from the public eye and no official portraits of him were commissioned after 1913. In spite of his physical and mental decline, he was not removed from the line of succession.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: In 1916, as his seizures became more frequent and severe, John was sent to live at Wood Farm, with "Lala" Bill having charge of his care.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Though he maintained an interest in the world around him and was capable of coherent thought and expression,


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: with his lack of educational progress, the last of his tutors was dismissed and his formal education ended. Physicians warned that he would likely not reach adulthood.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: At Wood Farm, John became "a satellite with his own little household on an outlying farm on the Sandringham estate... Guests at Balmoral remember him during the Great War as tall and muscular, but always a distant figure glimpsed from afar in the woods, escorted by his own retainers."


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: His grandmother Queen Alexandra maintained a garden at Sandringham House especially for him, and this became "one of the great pleasures of [Prince John]'s life."


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: After the summer of 1916, John was rarely seen outside the Sandringham Estate and passed solely into "Lala" Bill's care.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: After Queen Alexandra wrote that "[Prince John] is very proud of his house but is longing for a companion,"


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Queen Mary broke from royal practice by having local children brought in to be playmates for Prince John.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: One of these was Winifred Thomas, a young girl from Halifax who had been sent to live with her aunt and uncle (who had charge of the royal stables at Sandringham) in hopes her asthma would improve.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Now they became close, taking nature walks together and working in Queen Alexandra's garden. Prince John also played with his elder siblings when they visited: once, when his two eldest brothers came to visit, the Prince of Wales "took him for a run in a kind of a push-cart, and they both disappeared from view."


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: John's seizures intensified, and Bill later wrote "we dared not let him be with his brothers and sister, because it upsets them so much, with the attacks getting so bad and coming so often."


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Biographer Denis Judd believes that Prince "[John]'s seclusion and 'abnormality' must have been disturbing to his brothers and sister", as he had been "a friendly, outgoing little boy, much loved by his brothers and sister, a sort of mascot for the family".


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: He spent Christmas Day 1918 with his family at Sandringham House but was driven back to Wood Farm at night.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Queen Mary wrote in her diary that the news wasa great shock, tho' for the poor little boy's restless soul, death came as a great relief. [She] broke the news to George and [they] motored down to Wood Farm. Found poor Lala very resigned but heartbroken. Little Johnnie looked very peaceful lying there.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Mary later wrote to Emily Alcock, an old friend, thatfor [John] it is a great relief, as his malady was becoming worse as he grew older,& he has thus been spared much suffering. I cannot say how grateful we feel to God for having taken him in such a peaceful way, he just slept quietly into his heavenly home, no pain no struggle, just peace for the poor little troubled spirit which had been a great anxiety to us for many years, ever since he was four years old.She went on to add that "the first break in the family circle is hard to bear, but people have been so kind& sympathetic& this has helped us much." George described his son's death simply as "the greatest mercy possible".


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: On 20 January, the "Daily Mirror" said that "when the Prince passed away his face bore an angelic smile"; its report also made the first public mention of Prince John's epilepsy.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Queen Mary wrote thatCanon Dalton& Dr Brownhill [John's physician] conducted the service which was awfully sad and touching. Many of our own people and the villagers were present. We thanked all Johnnie's servants who have been so good and faithful to him.Though nominally private, the funeral was attended by Sandringham House staff; "every single person on the estate went and stood around the gates and his grave was absolutely covered in flowers." Queen Alexandra wrote to Queen Mary that "now [their] two darling Johnnies lie side by side".


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Prince Edward, who was eleven years older than his brother and had hardly known Prince John, saw his death as "little more than a regrettable nuisance." He wrote to his mistress of the time that "the poor boy had become more of an animal than anything else." Edward also wrote an insensitive letter to Queen Mary, which has since been lost. She did not reply, but he felt compelled to write her an apology, in which he stated:"I feel such a cold hearted and unsympathetic swine for writing all that I did ... No one can realize more than you how little poor Johnnie meant to me who hardly knew him ... I feel so much for you, darling Mama, who was his mother."In her final mention of Prince John in her diary, Queen Mary wrote simply "miss the dear child very much indeed." She gave Winifred Thomas a number of John's books, which she had inscribed, "In memory of our dear little Prince." "Lala" Bill always kept a portrait of Prince John above her mantelpiece, together with a letter from him that read "nanny, I love you."


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: In recent years, Prince John's seclusion has been brought forward as claimed evidence of the "heartlessness" of the Windsor family. According to a 2008 Channel 4 documentary, much of the existing information about Prince John is "based on hearsay and rumour, precisely because so few details of his life and his problems have ever been disclosed," and the British Epileptic Association has stated,"There was nothing unusual in what [the King and Queen] did. At that time, people with epilepsy were put apart from the rest of the community. They were often put in epilepsy colonies or mental institutions. It was thought to be a form of mental illness" …adding that it was another twenty years before the idea that epileptics should not be locked away began to take hold.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: One author has claimed that the royal family believed that these afflictions might flow through their blood, which was then still believed to be purer than the blood of a commoner, and, as such, wished to hide as much as possible in regard to Prince John's illness.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Others have suggested that Prince John was sent to Wood Farm to give him the best environment possible under the "austere" conditions of World War I.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: Another author has claimed that undoubtedly the royal family were "frightened and ashamed of John's illness", and yet another author has claimed that Prince John's life is "usually portrayed either as tragedy or conspiracy".


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: At the time that Edward VIII (formerly Prince Edward) abdicated, an attempt was made to discredit Prince Albert, who had succeeded as George VI, by suggesting that he was subject to falling fits, like his brother.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: In 1998, after the discovery of two volumes of family photographs, Prince John was briefly brought to public attention.


title: Prince John of the United Kingdom

text: "The Lost Prince", a biographical drama about Prince John's life written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff, was released in 2003.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The Spanish Armada (a.k.a. the Enterprise of England, ) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat without previous naval experience appointed by Philip II of Spain. His orders were to sail up the English Channel, link up with the Duke of Parma in Flanders, and escort an invasion force that would land in England and overthrow Elizabeth I. Its purpose was to reinstate Catholicism in England, end support for the Dutch Republic, and prevent attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The Spanish were opposed by an English fleet based in Plymouth. Faster and more manoeuvrable than the larger Spanish galleons, they were able to attack the Armada as it sailed up the Channel. Several subordinates advised Medina Sidonia to anchor in The Solent and occupy the Isle of Wight, but he refused to deviate from his instructions to link up with Parma. Although the Armada reached Calais largely intact, while awaiting communication from Parma, it was attacked at night by English fire ships and forced to scatter.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The Armada suffered further losses in the ensuing Battle of Gravelines, and was in danger of running aground on the Dutch coast when the wind changed, allowing it to escape into the North Sea. Pursued by the English, the Spanish ships returned home via Scotland and Ireland. Up to 24 ships were wrecked along the way before the rest managed to get home.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The expedition was the largest engagement of the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War. The following year, England organized a similar large-scale campaign against Spain, the English Armada, sometimes called the "counter-Armada of 1589", which was also a failure.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The word "armada" is from the , which is cognate with English "army". Originally from the , the past participle of , used in Romance languages as a noun for "armed force", "army", "navy", "fleet". is still the Spanish term for the modern Spanish Navy.


title: Spanish Armada

text: By the mid sixteenth century Hapsburg Spain under King Philip II was a dominant political and military power in Europe, with a global empire which became the source of her wealth. It championed the Catholic cause and its global possessions stretched from Europe, the Americas and to the Philippines. This was expanded further in 1580 when Portugal was annexed thus forming the Iberian Union, greatly expanding the empire. Philip became the first monarch who ruled over an empire upon which the sun did not set, and he did so from his chambers in the Escorial Palace by means of written communication.


title: Spanish Armada

text: In comparison England was only a minor European power with no empire, and it could exercise little influence over its shores. King Henry VIII began the English Reformation as a political exercise over his desire to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Over time, England became increasingly aligned with the Protestant reformation taking place in Europe, especially during the reign of Henry's son, Edward VI. Edward died childless, and his half-sister Mary ascended the throne in 1553. Three years later Mary married Philip II, becoming queen consort of Spain and began to reassert Roman Catholic influence over church affairs. Her attempts led to more than 260 people being burned at the stake, earning her the nickname "Bloody Mary".


title: Spanish Armada

text: Mary's death in 1558 led to her half-sister Elizabeth taking the throne. Unlike Mary, Elizabeth was firmly in the reformist camp and quickly reimplemented many of Edward's reforms. Philip, no longer co-monarch, deemed Elizabeth a heretic and illegitimate ruler of England. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Henry had never officially divorced Catherine, making Elizabeth illegitimate. It is alleged that Philip supported plots to have Elizabeth overthrown in favour of her Catholic cousin and heir presumptive, Mary, Queen of Scots. These plans were thwarted when Elizabeth had Mary imprisoned in 1567. Mary was forced to abdicate the crown of Scotland in favour of her son James VI. The first documented suggestion of what was called the "Enterprise of England" was in the summer of 1583 when, flushed with pride of his victory in the Azores, Álvaro de Bazán, Marquis of Santa Cruz addressed the suggestion to Philip II of taking advantage of it to attack England.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Elizabeth finally had Mary executed in February 1587, due to constant plots against the queen carried out in Mary's name. Elizabeth also retaliated against Philip by supporting the Dutch Revolt against Spain, as well as funding privateers to raid Spanish ships across the Atlantic. She had also negotiated an enduring trade and political alliance with Morocco.


title: Spanish Armada

text: In retaliation, Philip planned an expedition to invade England in order to overthrow Elizabeth and, if the Armada was not entirely successful, at least negotiate freedom of worship for Catholics and financial compensation for war in the Low Countries. Through this endeavour, English material support for the United Provinces, the part of the Low Countries that had successfully seceded from Spanish rule, and English attacks on Spanish trade and settlements in the New World would end. Philip was supported by Pope Sixtus V, who treated the invasion as a crusade, with the promise of a subsidy should the Armada make land. Substantial support for the invasion was also expected from English Catholics, including wealthy and influential aristocrats and traders.


title: Spanish Armada

text: A raid on Cádiz, led by privateer Francis Drake in April 1587, had captured or destroyed about 30 ships and great quantities of supplies, setting preparations back by a year. There is also evidence that a letter from Elizabeth's security chief and spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, to her ambassador in Istanbul, William Harborne, sought to initiate Ottoman Empire fleet manoeuvres to harass the Spaniards, but there is no evidence for the success of that plan.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The Prince of Parma was initially consulted by Philip II in 1583. Alexander stressed that three conditions would need to be met so as to achieve success; absolute secrecy, secure the possession and defense of the Dutch provinces, and keep the French from interfering either with a peace agreement or by sowing division between the Catholic League and the Huguenots. Secrecy couldn't be maintained which made the enterprise vastly more complicated. Philip ultimately combined Parma's plan with that of Santa Cruz, initially entertaining a triple attack, starting with a diversionary raid on Scotland, while the main Armada would capture either the Isle of Wight or Southampton to establish a safe anchorage in The Solent. Farnese would then follow with a large army from the Low Countries crossing the English Channel.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The appointed commander of the naval forces of the Armada was the highly experienced Marquis of Santa Cruz while Alexander Farnese would be in command of the invasion forces. Unfortunately, Santa Cruz died in February 1588 and the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a high-born courtier, took his place. While a competent soldier and distinguished administrator, Medina Sidonia had no naval experience. He wrote to Philip expressing grave doubts about the planned campaign, but his message was prevented from reaching the King by courtiers on the grounds that God would ensure the Armada's success.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Prior to the undertaking, Pope Sixtus V allowed Philip to collect crusade taxes and granted his men indulgences. The blessing of the Armada's banner on April 25, 1588, was similar to the ceremony used prior to the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. On May 28, 1588, the Armada set sail from Lisbon and headed for the English Channel. When it left Lisbon, the fleet was composed of 141 ships, 8,000 sailors and 18,000 soldiers, and bore 1,500 brass guns and 1,000 iron guns. The full body of the fleet took two days to leave port.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The Armada was delayed by bad weather. Storms in the Bay of Biscay along the Galician coast forced four galleys and one galleon to turn back, and other ships had to put in to A Coruña for repairs, leaving 137 ships that sailed for the English Channel. Nearly half of the ships were not built as warships and were used for duties such as scouting and dispatch work, or for carrying supplies, animals and troops. It included 24 purpose-built warships, 44 armed merchantmen, 38 auxiliary vessels and 34 supply ships.


title: Spanish Armada

text: In the Spanish Netherlands, Alexander Farnese had mustered 30,000 soldiers and ordered hundreds of flyboats built to carry them across the channel gives 30,500 and raised to 30,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry on p.96. Also, the hoax paper "The English Mercurie published by Authoritie", Whitehall July 23, 1588, Imprinted at London by Chriss Barker, Her Highnesse's Printer, 1588, otherwise states fairly accurately, p. 3, "...all the Spanish troops in the Netherlands, and consists of thirty thousand Foot and eighteen hundred Horse."</ref> while awaiting the arrival of the Armada. Since the secret was out from the get go and the element of surprise was long gone, the new plan was to use the cover of the warships to convey the army on barges to a place near London. In all, 55,000 men were to have been mustered, a huge army for that time. On the day the Armada set sail, Elizabeth's ambassador in the Netherlands, Valentine Dale, met Parma's representatives in peace negotiations. The English made a vain effort to intercept the Armada in the Bay of Biscay. On July 6, negotiations were abandoned, and the English fleet stood prepared, if ill-supplied, at Plymouth, awaiting news of Spanish movements.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Only 122 ships from the Spanish fleet entered the Channel; the four galleys, one nao, five pataches and the 10 Portuguese caravels had left the fleet before the first encounter with the English fleet. An additional 5 pataches, dispatched to deliver messages to Parma, should be deducted which brings the number to 117 Spanish ships facing the roughly 226-strong English fleet. While the Spanish fleet outgunned that of the English. The Spanish available firepower was 50% more than that of the English. The English fleet consisted of the 34 ships of the Royal Fleet, 21 of which were galleons of 200 to 400 tons, and 163 other ships, 30 of which were of 200 to 400 tons and carried up to 42 guns each. Twelve of the ships were privateers owned by Lord Howard of Effingham, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake.


title: Spanish Armada

text: In the beginning of June, Parma had sent Captain Moresin with some pilots to Admiral Sedonia. Upon Moresin's return on June 22, the report he made to Farnese caused him distress. Medina Sedonia was under the impression that Farnese could simply sail out into the channel with his barges filled with troops. Parma had continually informed the king that his passage to the channel was blocked by English and Dutch ships, and the only way he could bring his boats out was if the Armada cleared the blockade.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The fleet was sighted in England on July 29, when it appeared off the Lizard in Cornwall. The news was conveyed to London by a system of beacons that had been constructed along the south coast. The same day the English fleet was trapped in Plymouth Harbour by the incoming tide. The Spanish convened a council of war, where it was proposed to ride into the harbour on the tide and incapacitate the defending ships at anchor. From Plymouth Harbour the Spanish would attack England, but Philip explicitly forbade Medina Sidonia from engaging, leaving the Armada to sail on to the east and toward the Isle of Wight. As the tide turned, 55 English ships set out to confront the Armada from Plymouth under the command of Lord Howard of Effingham, with Sir Francis Drake as vice admiral. The rear admiral was Sir John Hawkins.


title: Spanish Armada

text: On July 30, the English fleet was off Eddystone Rocks with the Armada upwind to the west. To execute its attack, the English tacked upwind of the Armada, thus gaining the weather gage, a significant advantage. At daybreak on July 31, the English fleet engaged the Armada off Plymouth near the Eddystone Rocks. The Armada was in a crescent-shaped defensive formation, convex toward the east. The galleons and great ships were concentrated in the centre and at the tips of the crescent's horns, giving cover to the transports and supply ships in between. Opposing them, the English were in two sections, with Drake to the north in with 11 ships, and Howard to the south in with the bulk of the fleet.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Given the Spanish advantage in close-quarter fighting, the English kept beyond grappling range and bombarded the Spanish ships from a distance with cannon fire. The distance was too great for the manoeuvre to be effective and, at the end of the first day's fighting neither fleet had lost a ship in action. The English caught up with the Spanish fleet after a day of sailing.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The English fleet and the Armada engaged once more on August 1, off Portland. A change of wind gave the Spanish the weather gage, and they sought to close with the English, but were foiled by the smaller ships' greater manoeuvrability. While the Spanish center manoeuvred to support the "Santa Ana", the "Nuestra Señora del Rosario" collided with a number of ships, losing her bowsprit and setting in motion a series of mishaps. She began to drift, and was taken off by the current in the opposite direction to the fleet and closer to the English. Drake in the "Revenge" sailed to the "Rosario" during the night and she was taken in action; Admiral (commander of the Squadron of Andalusia) surrendered along with his entire crew. On board, the English seized supplies of much-needed gunpowder and 50,000 gold ducats. Drake had been guiding the English fleet by means of a lantern, which he snuffed out to slip away from the Spanish ships, causing the rest of his fleet to become scattered and disarrayed by dawn. At one point, Howard formed his ships into a line of battle to attack at close range, bringing all his guns to bear, but he did not follow through with the maneuver and little was achieved. During a lull in battle, "San Salvador"'s gunpowder magazine exploded, lighting a portion of the ship on fire. The Spanish attempted to scuttle the ship, but this failed when the "Golden Hind" came up. The Spanish evacuated the vessel and the "Golden Hind" promptly captured her.


title: Spanish Armada

text: If the Armada could create a temporary base in the protected waters of the Solent, the strait separating the Isle of Wight from the English mainland, it could wait there for word from Parma's army; Farnese did not get news of this until August 6. However, in a full-scale attack, the English fleet broke into four groups with Martin Frobisher of the ship "Aid" given command over a squadron, and Drake coming with a large force from the south. Medina Sidonia sent reinforcements south and ordered the Armada back to open sea to avoid the Owers shoals. There were no other secure harbours further east along England's south coast, so the Armada was compelled to make for Calais, without being able to wait for word of Parma's army.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Starting on the 1st of August Sidonia began sending Farnese messages detailing his position and movements. It was not until the following day that Alexander received the first report from the Admiral.


title: Spanish Armada

text: On August 7, the Armada anchored off Calais in a tightly packed defensive crescent formation, not far from Dunkirk (Farnese only learned of this on that same afternoon) where Parma's army, reduced by disease to 16,000, was expected to be waiting, ready to join the fleet in barges sent from ports along the Flemish coast. An essential element of the plan of invasion, as it was eventually implemented, was the transportation of a large part of Parma's Army of Flanders as the main invasion force in unarmed barges across the English Channel. These barges would be protected by the large ships of the Armada. However, to get to the Armada, they would have to cross the zone dominated by the Dutch navy, where the Armada could not go. This problem seems to have been overlooked by the Armada commanders, but it was insurmountable. Communication was more difficult than anticipated, and word came too late that Parma's army had yet to be equipped with sufficient transport or to be assembled in the port, a process that would take at least six days. As Medina Sidonia waited at anchor, Dunkirk was blockaded by a Dutch fleet of 30 flyboats under Lieutenant-Admiral Justinus van Nassau. The Dutch flyboats mainly operated in the shallow waters off Zeeland and Flanders where larger warships with a deeper draught, like the Spanish and English galleons, could not safely enter. Parma expected the Armada to send its light pataches to drive away the Dutch, but Medina Sidonia would not send them because he feared he would need these ships for his own protection. There was no deep-water port where the fleet might shelter, which had been acknowledged as a major difficulty for the expedition, and the Spanish found themselves vulnerable as night drew on.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The Dutch enjoyed an unchallenged naval advantage in these waters, even though their navy was inferior in naval armament. Because Medina Sidonia didn’t attempt to break the Dutch blockade and Parma wouldn’t risk attempting the passage unescorted, the Army of Flanders escaped the trap that Van Nassau had in mind for them.


title: Spanish Armada

text: In the middle of the night of August 7–8, the English set alight eight fireships, sacrificing warships by filling them with pitch, brimstone, gunpowder and tar, and cast them downwind among the closely anchored vessels of the Armada. The Spanish feared that these uncommonly large fireships were "hellburners", specialised fireships filled with large gunpowder charges that had been used to deadly effect at the Siege of Antwerp. Three were intercepted by pataches and towed away, but the remainder bore down on the fleet. Medina Sidonia's flagship and the principal warships held their positions, but the rest of the fleet cut their anchor cables and scattered in confusion. No Spanish ships were burnt, but the crescent formation had been broken, and the fleet found itself too far leeward of Calais in the rising southwesterly wind to recover its position. The English closed in for battle. Farnese learned of this the following day


title: Spanish Armada

text: The small port of Gravelines was part of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands close to the border with France, and was the closest Spanish territory to England.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Before dawn on August 8, Medina Sidonia struggled to regather his fleet after the fireships scattered it, and was reluctant to sail further east than Gravelines, knowing the danger of running aground on the shoals off Flanders, from which his Dutch enemies had removed the sea marks. The English learned of the Armada's weaknesses during the skirmishes in the English Channel, and concluded it was possible to close in to within to be able to penetrate the oak hulls of the Spanish warships. They had spent most of their gunpowder in the first engagements and had, after the Isle of Wight, been forced to conserve their heavy shot and powder for an anticipated attack near Gravelines. During all the engagements, the Spanish heavy guns could not easily be reloaded because of their close spacing and the quantities of supplies stowed between decks, as Drake had discovered on capturing the "Nuestra Señora del Rosario" in the Channel. Instead, the Spanish gunners fired once and then transferred to their main task, which was to board enemy ships, as had been the practice in naval warfare at the time. Evidence from Armada wrecks in Ireland shows that much of the fleet's ammunition was unused. Their determination to fight by boarding, rather than employing cannon fire at a distance, proved a disadvantage for the Spanish. The manoeuver had been effective in the battles of Lepanto and Ponta Delgada earlier in the decade, but the English were aware of it and sought to avoid it by keeping their distance.


title: Spanish Armada

text: While Medina Sidonia was gathering the Armada ships together into their traditional crescent formation the English fleet moved in, and at dawn the flagship with four other ships found themselves facing the entire English fleet., claims it was eighteen ships</ref> The English provoked Spanish fire while staying out of range. The English then closed, firing damaging broadsides into the enemy ships, all the while maintaining a windward position, so the heeling Armada hulls were exposed to damage below the water line when they changed course later. Many of the Spanish gunners were killed or wounded by the English broadsides, and the task of manning the cannon often fell to foot soldiers who did not know how to operate them. The ships were close enough for sailors on the upper decks of the English and Spanish ships to exchange musket fire. A couple of hours into the battle, a few more Armada warships closed in to form wings on either side of the five ships already under attack. After eight hours, the English ships began to run out of ammunition, and some gunners began loading objects such as chains into their cannons. Around 4 pm, the English fired their last shots and pulled back.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Five Spanish and Portuguese ships were lost: one carrack the 605 ton "Maria Juan" which had been part of Don Diego Flores de Valdes' Castile Squadron which had attempted to surrender to Captain Robert Crosse of the "Hope", sank off Blankenberge with the loss of 275 men - the Spanish only managing to rescue a boatload of survivors. The galleass "San Lorenzo", the flagship of Don Hugo de Moncada which had been holed below the waterline was forced to run aground at Calais to avoid sinking. Howard on sight of this ordered a flotilla of ship's boats to carry her by boarding. Moncada was killed during an exchange of small arms fire: an arquebus shot to his head. The ship was then taken after murderous fighting between the crew, galley slaves and the English. The French meanwhile could do little except to watch as the ship was plundered but they opened fire to ward off the English who quickly left to join the rest of the fight. The next day the severely crippled galleon "San Mateo" ran aground in between Sluis and Ostend - and was taken by a combination of Dutch ships and English troops led by Francis Vere The captain Don Diego Pimmental surrendered along with the survivors of his crew. Later that day the equally crippled "San Felipe" commanded by Maestre de Campo Don Fransico De Toldeo drifted away sinking also running aground on the island of Walcheren from which English troops sortied from Flushing attacked the stricken vessel and took the crew prisoners. A Dutch force of flyboats led by Justinus van Nassau then took possession of the ship. A pinnace also ran aground by her crew to prevent her from sinking.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Many other Spanish ships were severely damaged, especially the Portuguese and some Spanish Atlantic-class galleons, including some Neapolitan galleys, which bore the brunt of the fighting during the early hours of the battle, Spanish – "Nuestra Señora del Rosario", "San Salvador", "La María Juan"; Naples – "San Lorenzo"; Portuguese – "São Mateus", "São Filipe" and the Spanish plan to join with Parma's army had been frustrated.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Because of the potential invasion from the Netherlands, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester assembled a force of 4,500 militia at West Tilbury, Essex, to defend the Thames Estuary against any incursion up-river toward London. The result of the English fireship attack and the sea battle of Gravelines had not yet reached England, so Elizabeth went to Tilbury on August 18 to review her forces, arriving on horseback in ceremonial armor to imply to the militia that she was prepared to lead them in the ensuing battle. She gave them her royal address, which survives in at least six slightly different versions. One version is as follows:


title: Spanish Armada

text: On the day after the battle at Gravelines, the disorganized and unmaneuverable Spanish fleet was at risk of running onto the sands of Zeeland because of the prevailing wind. The wind then changed to the south, enabling the fleet to sail north. The English ships under Howard pursued to prevent any landing on English soil, although by this time his ships were almost out of shot. On August 12, Howard called a halt to the pursuit at about the latitude of the Firth of Forth off Scotland. The only option left to the Spanish ships was to return to Spain by sailing round the north of Scotland and home via the Atlantic or the Irish Sea. As the Spanish fleet rounded Scotland it on August 20, it consisted of 110 vessels and most made it around. The "San Juan de Sicilia", heavily damaged during the Gravelines engagement had struggled North and limped into Tobermory bay on the Isle of Mull on 23 September but was later destroyed by an English agent sent by Sir Francis Walsingham with most of the crew on board.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The Spanish ships were beginning to show wear from the long voyage, and some were kept together by strengthening their damaged hulls with cables. Supplies of food and water ran short. The intention would have been to keep to the west of the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, seeking the relative safety of the open sea. There being no way of accurately measuring longitude, the Spanish were not aware that the Gulf Stream was carrying them north and east as they tried to move west, and they eventually turned south much closer to the coast than they thought. Off Scotland and Ireland, the fleet ran into a series of powerful westerly winds which drove many of the damaged ships further toward the lee shore. Because so many anchors had been abandoned during the escape from the English fireships off Calais, many of the ships were incapable of securing shelter as the fleet reached the coast of Ireland and were driven onto the rocks; local inhabitants looted the ships. The late sixteenth century and especially 1588 was marked by unusually strong North Atlantic storms, perhaps associated with a high accumulation of polar ice off the coast of Greenland, a feature of the "Little Ice Age". More ships and sailors were lost to cold and stormy weather than in direct combat.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Most of the 28 ships lost in the storms were along the jagged steep rocks of the western coast of Ireland. About 5,000 men died by drowning, starvation and slaughter by local inhabitants after their ships were driven ashore on the west coasts of Scotland and Ireland. The English Lord Deputy William FitzWilliam ordered the English soldiers in Ireland to kill any Spanish prisoners, which was done on several occasions instead of asking for ransom as was common during that period. Reports of the passage of the remnants of the Spanish Armada around Ireland abound with onerous accounts of hardships and survival. One of the costliest wrecks was that of the ship Spanish galleass "La Girona", which was driven on to Lacada Point in County Antrim on the night of October 26. Of the estimated 1,300 people on board, there were nine survivors. 260 bodies washed ashore, including , knight and of the Order of Santiago. Captain Francisco de Cuéllar was wrecked on the coast of Ireland and gave a remarkable account of his experiences in the fleet, on the run in Ireland, defeat of an English army besieging Rosclogher castle, flight through Scotland, surviving a second shipwreck and ultimate return to Spain.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Even before ships began to return the first rumours of a setback for the armada began to reach Spain when news of the English fireships breaking the Spanish formation at Calais but this were disbelieved. The King noted "I hope God has not permitted so much evil". Nothing was heard for nearly two weeks and it wasn't until September 21 however that the first of the ships of the Armada began to arrive into Spain - the first of eight limped into Coruña which included Medina Sidonia's "San Martin". Over the next few days Diego Flores took 22 more into Laredo harbour and Miguel de Oquendo bought five more into the port of Guipuzcoa.


title: Spanish Armada

text: By mid-October it was becoming more apparent for the Spanish that few if any more of the remaining missing ships of the armada would return. Even in November three months after the battles through the Channel, a few Spanish ships were still attempting the journey home. One of the last, the Spanish hospital ship "San Pedro El Mayor" carrying some 200 sick and wounded survivors limped into Hope Cove in Devon on November 7 - the commander trying to find a suitable place to ground her. The crew were taken prisoner and the sick were treated in Bodmin and Plympton.


title: Spanish Armada

text: After the Duke of Parma was certain that the Armada had sailed away from the coast of Flanders and his participation in the invasion project was no longer feasible, he ordered his soldiers to disembark so as to avoid an epidemic of disease. He then assembled his Council of War to discuss what endeavors his forces could be used for before the onset of winter. In late September he divided them into three groups; one sent to the Rhine, one to remain in the costal region and one led by Parma himself to capture Bergen-op-Zoom. There in November he was repelled with heavy losses by the Anglo-Dutch garrison, and combined with poor weather was forced to abandon the siege.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Even though the Spanish armada had failed to invade England it had demonstrated its feasibility, and that the British Isles overall were vulnerable to attack.


title: Spanish Armada

text: It took some time for the scale of the victory to be realized as news began to filter through by the end of August and beginning of September. All the while, the costs of this defensive effort were mounting — the total was nearly £400,000 — and measures were put in motion to mitigate it. After the victory, the English ships came into port in grim condition. Typhus, scurvy and dysentery swept the through the ships. For instance, of the Elizabeth Bonaventure's crew of 500, more than 200 had died and, as Howard wrote to Burghley on August 20, 1588,


title: Spanish Armada

text: The day after her Tilbury speech, Elizabeth ordered the army disbanded, the camp at Tilbury dissolved five days later, then discharged the navy, sending them home without pay and many died of disease and starvation after landing at Margate. Hawkins accused Burghley "that by death, by discharging of sick men, and such like, that there may be spared something in the general pay." As Major General Fuller put it, The men had to rely on the charity of their officers, and Howard set an example by doing what he could out of his own purse to help the sailors. Nevertheless upwards of 3,000 perished. As a result the Chatham Chest was set up - its purpose to help pay pensions to disabled seamen.


title: Spanish Armada

text: In contrast, a number of thanksgiving services were held at Cathedrals and Churches throughout England. At St Paul's Cathedral in London a series of thanksgivings took place, the first on August 30 where a sermon was preached, followed by another on September 18. As news of the full scale of the disaster came through, and also news of England's victory against Parma at Bergen-Op-Zoom, a bigger National service of thanksgiving took place on November 29. A second and final thanksgiving took place five days later which saw a royal procession of the Queen in a chariot through the streets of London. Twelve Spanish standards and other trophies which had been captured from the ships of the armada, decorated the choir of St Paul during the huge service.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The captured Spanish galleons "Nuestra Señora del Rosario" and the "San Salvador" were studied by the English. The "San Salvador" became known as the 'Great Spaniard' but was lost in a wreck in November 1588 off Studland. "Nuestra Señora del Rosario" was brought to Dartmouth. The 397 crew were taken to Torre Abbey near Torquay where they were held prisoner in a barn (today called the 'Spanish Barn') and spared execution. The "Rosario" was later sent to Chatham where she was dry docked and eventually sunk to support a wharf. Pedro de Valdés was held prisoner in the Tower of London for five years, until his ransom was paid by his family for his release back to Spain. He was not blamed for the loss of his ship and was appointed colonial governor of Cuba from 1602 to 1608.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The Dutch also celebrated the victory and their artists were quick to take on commemorative medals and paintings which were soon circulated within the year. The wrecked Spanish galleons "San Mateo" and "San Felipe" which had run aground were both found to be riddled with holes by cannonballs that had struck below the waterline. Both ships were too damaged to be salvaged and were therefore broken up - the cannons were used by the Dutch in nearby fortresses. The main-topmast rigging banner from the "San Matteo" - part of which depicts 'Christ on the Cross', was taken, hung and displayed in the choir of St Peters Church in Leiden. It now resides in the Museum De Lakenhal.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The news of the disaster brought shock and despair and the nation went into mourning. Its defeat was even more devastating because hopes of its success had been raised by false rumours. These included Drake and Howard being taken prisoner, the Isle of Wight and Plymouth taken and Parma's army even approaching London. The King took the news hard and shut himself away for days - the daily business of government was also brought to an abrupt halt. The King is claimed to have said: "I sent the Armada against men, not God's winds and waves". News of the loss of "La Girona" bore more despair for Philip, the loss of not only De Leiva but also his followers from almost every noble house in Spain had also drowned with him.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The number of ships lost have been debated - historian examined the fate of each ship creating individual dossiers and provided precise data as follows:


title: Spanish Armada

text: Of the 122 Armada ships that entered the English Channel, 87 returned from their voyage through the Channel and around the British isles. Other historians have done further research; Neil Hanson, Robert Hutchinson, Colin Martin and Geoffrey Parker all researched the Armada ships that had returned coming to the same conclusion. The overall figure of between 44 and 51 ships being lost overall - with more detailed breakdowns in the number of ships that set sail along with their fate. That figure being a third of the fleet had been sunk, captured, wrecked or scuttled. American historian Garrett Mattingly wrote in 1959 that only 66 ships returned to Spain, with another returning later in the year. The losses did not include the smaller vulnerable ships like the pataches and zarbas. Even though most of the ships had returned, many of them were severely damaged from either the storms, and English gunfire. One hulk the "Doncella" sank after they had cast anchor in Santander, and the "Santa Anna" was accidentally burned within a few days of entering San Sebastian. In addition the severely damaged galleons "San Marcos" and "San Francisco" were broken up, the guns and the timber being sold off. As many as half of the fleet were unfit for further service and as a result a number were scuttled, broken up or left to rot.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Furthermore, Spanish sources state that no more than 11,000 perished. Philip's administrators, bureaucrats and secretaries documented, dated and filed everything that went on in all corners of the Spanish empire, and all those records are still kept in the National Archives of Spain and the Escorial. The number of men lost was extracted from the paymaster distribution lists. A detailed analysis of the human cost of the campaign reveals that 25,696 men left Coruña and 13,399 returned.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Even after arrival the men were near death from disease, as the conditions were very cramped, and most of the ships had run out of food and water. More Armada survivors later died in Spain or on hospital ships in Spanish harbours from diseases contracted during the voyage. A large number of prominent Spanish commanders also died, many after having arrived in port. Vice Admiral of the fleet and commander of the Guipuzcoa Squadron, Miguel de Oquendo suffering from battle wounds and a fever, died at Coruña two days after arriving. Another was the Biscayan squadron commander Juan Martínez de Recalde, who also succumbed the same way. The Duke of Medina Sidonia also fell ill on his return and nearly succumbed; he was not blamed by Philip, who allowed him to return home to convalesce. Hutchinson claimed that the number of survivors was just over 50% but these numbers however do not include the Portuguese, the Neapolitans and the galley slaves. while Hanson claimed that fewer than 10,000 men (38%) survived the expedition.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The following year the English with Dutch conscripts launched the Counter Armada, under Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norris with three tasks:


title: Spanish Armada

text: None of the objectives were achieved. The attempt to restore the Portuguese Crown from Spain was unsuccessful, and the opportunity to strike a decisive blow against the weakened Spanish Navy was lost. The expedition depleted the financial resources of England's treasury, which had been carefully restored during the long reign of Elizabeth I, and its failure was so embarrassing that, even today, England barely acknowledges it ever happened. Through this lost opportunity, Philip was able revive his navy the very next year, sending 37 ships with 6,420 men to Brittany where they established a base of operations on the Blavet river. The English and Dutch ultimately failed to disrupt the various fleets of the Indies despite the great number of military personnel mobilized every year. Thus, Spain remained the predominant power in Europe for several decades.


title: Spanish Armada

text: During the course of the war, the Spanish struggled to gain control of the English Channel or stop the English intervention in Flanders or English privateer transatlantic raids. From their base in Brittany, Spanish corsairs did make several incursions on the English coast and plundered English and Dutch ships. The Spanish launched a number of small scale attacks such as the Raid on Mount's Bay in Cornwall on July 26, 1595, where over two days, Penzance, Newlyn, Mousehole, and Paul were raided and torched. Another smaller raid on Cawsand bay, also in Cornwall, took place the following year but ended in failure. In June 1596 England and the United Dutch Provinces sent a second Armada to Spain seizing Cadiz and holding the place for two weeks causing economic losses but failed to seize the treasure fleet. After this three more armadas were sent by Spain: in 1596 (126-140 ships) which was scattered by a storm, 1597 (140 ships) where 7 ships managed to land 700 elite forces on a beach in one of the creeks off the Helford River near Falmouth, and 1601 (33 ships) where the Spanish held the town of Kinsale for three months, but these efforts ultimately failed to succeed. The conflict wound down with diminishing military actions until a peace was agreed between the two powers on the signing of the Treaty of London in 1604.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The Spanish had 117 ships to go up against 200+ English ships. The opposing forces were experienced in completely different fighting styles. The Spanish style can be studied from the Battle of Lepanto. Their tactics were to fire one cannon volley, ram and grapple the enemy ship, board, then engage in hand to hand combat. In contrast, the English style was taking advantage of the wind (the "weather gage") and line-to-line cannon fire from windward, which exposed the opponent ship's hull and rudder as targets. Also instilled was the use of naval cannon to damage enemy ships without the need to board. Until then, the cannon had played a supporting role to the main tactic of ramming and boarding enemy ships. The failure of the Spanish Armada vindicated the English strategy and caused a revolution in naval tactics. The English also had the advantage of fighting close to home which they could be easily and frequently get resupplied so as not to be weighed down, unlike the Armada ships which were loaded with all the materiel needed for their invasion force to wage a ground based war. Nevertheless, when the fleets actually came to blows at the battle of Gravelines, the Armada was out numbered 10:1, and during the 8-hour fight, the English managed to sink one carrack and forced two galleons, a pinnace and an armed merchant to run aground. Despite those odds, not once did the Armada turn away from a fight; each time it challenged the English fleet, the latter raised its sails to keep its distance. Furthermore, after the final engagement with the English fleet, the Spanish fleet sailed away retaining its ability to effectively wage war.


title: Spanish Armada

text: Most military historians hold that the battle of Gravelines reflected a lasting shift in the balance of naval power in favour of the English, in part because of the gap in naval technology and cannon armament which continued into the next century. In the words of historian Geoffrey Parker, by 1588, "the capital ships of the Elizabethan navy constituted the most powerful battlefleet afloat anywhere in the world". The English navy yards were leaders in technical innovation, and the captains devised new battle formations and tactics. The sleeker and more manoeuvrable full-rigged ship, with ample cannon, was one of the greatest advances of the century and permanently transformed naval warfare.


title: Spanish Armada

text: English shipwrights introduced novel designs, first demonstrated in the in 1570 and the in 1573, that allowed the ships to sail faster, manoeuvre better, and carry more and heavier guns. Whereas before warships had tried to grapple with each other so soldiers could board the enemy ship, they were able to stand off and fire broadside cannonades that could sink the vessel. English ships and seamanship had foiled the invasion. The English also benefited from Spain's unworkable strategy that required coordination between the invasion fleet and the Spanish army on shore yet didn't seem to have learned from that mistake since they attempted the same tactic in Portugal the very next year; the English army under Norris' command marching on Lisbon expecting Drake to simultaneously attack the city with his ships. The outdated design of the Spanish cannon meant that they were much slower in reloading in a close-range battle, allowing the English to take control. Spain still had numerically larger fleets, but England was catching up.


title: Spanish Armada

text: In England the victory prompted a huge David vs Goliath propaganda offensive, and its exploitation boosted national pride which lasted for years. Elizabeth's legend persisted and grew long after her death. It also may have given heart to the Protestant cause across Europe and the belief that God was behind the Protestants. This was shown by the striking of commemorative medals that bore variations on the inscription, ""1588. Flavit Jehovah et Dissipati Sunt"" – with "Jehovah" in Hebrew letters ("God blew, and they are scattered"), or "He blew with His winds, and they were scattered". There were also more lighthearted medals struck, such as the one with the play on the words of Julius Caesar: "Venit, Vidit, Fugit" ("he came, he saw, he fled"). The wind that scattered the Armada has been called "the Protestant Wind", a phrase also used for later invasions of England that failed.


title: Spanish Armada

text: The memory of the victory over the Armada was evoked during both the Napoleonic Wars and the Second World War, when Britain again faced a substantial danger of foreign invasion. During the Battle of Britain RAF fighter pilots attracted world attention as the 'new Elizabethans'. The Armada Memorial in Plymouth was constructed in 1888 to celebrate the tercentenary of the defeat of the Spanish Armada.


title: Spanish Armada

text: One of the greatest finds of the Spanish Armada was the remains of the wreck of "La Girona", found by a team of Belgian divers off the coast of Portballintrae in 1968. It was the greatest treasure salvaged up until that time. Gold and silver coins, jewelry, armaments and other objects are on permanent display at the Ulster Museum (part of the National Museums of Northern Ireland) in Stranmillis in Belfast.