Drake!?!

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I cant believe tht you people are arguing over the rights and wrongs of a war from 400 years ago!
But let me stick my oar in

English historians of the armada do not write their books based on primarily English sources. The main sources are the archives of Philip's correspondence and the requisition/ provisioning documents for the armada at the Spanish archives in Simancas. Additional sources are the family archives of the dukes of Medina Sidonia (apparently in some place called San Lucar de Baramede) and Parma (though these are not as detailed since for various reasons they are scattered between Parma, Naples and Brussels, and consequently many documents have been lost). English sources are comparativelty scarce, and most are oddly enough, from the archives of the Audit Office and Exchequer, not from the navy! (accountants!)

Regarding Elizabeth seizing Spanish money bound for the Army of Flanders, this happened after teh business with Hawkins at San Juan de Ulua in 1568. Hawkins was trading (on behlaf of the Queen) in the West Indies (and probably involved in piracy, but in his first to trade missions he had actually paid taxes to the Spanish crown in 1562 (despite the small matter of the ToT making such trading illegal from the Sapnish perspective). At San Juan de Ulua while repairing his ships after a storm, a Spanish fleet showed up. A truce was agreed (though BOTH sides probably were going to break it, the Spainiards doing so first since they were stronger). Hawkins and Drake got away having lost one of the Queen's ships. They got back to ENgland in 1569, in time for this arrival of Spanish ships seeking shelter from Hugenot pirates. THe news of the perceived Spainsh perfidy at San Juan de Ulua, caused Elizabeth to seize the Spainish ships (And Spain retaliated by seizing English ships in Spainish ports). None of this was helped by Philip refusing to see the English ambassador b/c he was a protestant priest.

Philip then got involved in plots against Elizabeth's life and began helping catholic Irish rebels (so Spain has no business complaing about English help for the Dutch). The first attempt at an invasion was made in 1574, but plague decimated that fleet and eventually the remnants was sent with reinforcements to the Netherlands instead.
When Philip exercised his claim to the throne of Portugal, while England (indirectly through Drake) supported a rival claimant. This in turn convinced Philip that he would have to take out England and led to the assembling of the armada form 1584 onwards. The treaty with the Dutch was concluded after the assasination of William of Orange, which in light of the numerous plots (Spanish and Papal inspired) against her, not surprisingly worried Elizabeth greatly.

As regards Drake, yes he he almost certainly did a lot of morally dubious things and was often after money, but that is not a reason to exclude him form the game. He was an important leader of the English navy, and it was many of his innovative tactics that gave England the upper hand. It was also his idea to assemble the fleet at Portsmouth (which is why England was able to harry the Armada up hte Channel). Howard had originally planned to assemble across form the Dutch coast and fight there if necessary.

Good to know he is in!

Also it is ironic, but the English navy after the death of Henry VIII was badly neglected during the reign of Edward VI. Guess who was responsible for beginning the repair of the fleet? King Philip when he was consort to Mary (in fact one of the English warships was called the "Philip and Mary". It was renamed in 1584). Perhaps an event should be added so that if there is an RM between Spain and England during King Philip's reign, England should have "reform of the navy, 1000d invested in naval tech" and "enthusiasm for the navy, 10 new warships" events!

 

[Pwyll]

Originally posted by sean9898
Could the Wellington bashers please point me to a battle he lost?

As well as defeating the Marshals who defeated other European powers, he did manage to not only defeat, but completely wipe out the Emperor's army, despite being outnumbered for most of the day.

His Spanish campaigns are remarkable, outnumbered in almost every battle he completely dispelled the notion of French superiority, at a time when their armies swept everything else before them.

Wellington should be a 6-6-6-0, as his siege capabilities were not exceptional, he rushed the sieges of Badajoz and Ciudad Roderigo, and had a distinct distaste for night attacks.

If one only looked at his Indian campaigns he would go down as a great general, and for those of you who think he could only defend; at Assaye, against an organized, European-style army with a cannon advantage, he attacked and destroyed the enemy despite being outnumbered 8:1.

Wellington is more than Waterloo, and an even passing knowledge of his achievements would avoid one falling into the same trap as Napoleon and dismissing the Sepoy General as average.

I think this is generally recogniosed why else would he lead the peace table in Europe...if not he why would other European nations feel he was a power that should be reckoned with.

 

[Johnny Canuck]

Originally posted by Johnny Canuck


Both Frobisher & Hawkins are in the game, Frobisher as an explorer (that lives for 40 years or so; in one game he single-handedly explored everything from Senegal to Japan) & Hawkins as a not-very-impressive Admiral.

I just realized that I made the unpardonable error of confusing Hawkins with Howard. Lord Howard of Effingham, who commanded the English forces against the Armada, is in the game at 3/3/3/0. Sir John Hawkins, unless I've made another mistake, is not in the game. Both he & Drake should be included, & since Drake apparently is now in, so should Hawkins!

- goes and hangs his head in shame -

 

[Ebusitanus]

Ok, let me try again to explain the basic notion from which I derive my whole posting. The Archive of Indies was a purely burocratical establishment created to gather all kind of information from the Spanish operations in the Americas. This recollection done by those archivists was of a complete objective manner, not done for any kind of public access or need of partial descriptions from events on such shores. Information varied between church records, shipping details from loads to ports of call, ship logs, weather conditions day by day, natural disasters, etc…Again, this is not some book written by some author for anybody’s consumption, or some autobiography by some Governor, it is just that a huge archive. Now if you believe that such a source of information is full of lies as you say and completely biased against the noble English seafarers in order to impress…No one, then I can’t convince you of the real objectivity of such masses of information gathered through the centuries in Seville.



Well, of course the Spanish have a motivation to lie. They would want to do anything to portray Drake as a thieving murderous criminal, and one that failed as often as he succeeded. Now, I'm not saying that Drake wasn't, but one should no more rely on the Spanish view of him as being objective as one would rely on the English view of him.

Again, this is not the official Philip II Summer 1575 international magazine or some other “official” Spanish opinionated source I’m quoting but rather that specific archive. Again, feel free to see it as a bunch of lies but it wont differ much from you mistrusting as violently biased some state census figures or some port loading records. Yes, they might be wrong here and there but not out of malice or bias but out of pure human error or lacking info. Therefore it can be assumed that much of the provided information is of a non tampered kind, pretty much objective and very much the closest to what actually happened. If the church records of Cartagena say that so and so many neighbors were interred in the days following an attack and so many pirates or heretics were buried in a mass grave outside city limits then we can take such figures as acceptable, no? Same thing as whether a number of ships in a convoy didn’t reach their ultimate destination.


Yes, Drake was a thief and a pirate, but he was also an explorer and an admiral. He won several important victories, of which Cadiz was one of the most important.

Never said that Drake wasn’t a great admiral or didn’t win important victories over his enemies. If you read carefully I say quite the contrary on my comments. I neither say he was a murderer or rapist like others who would be following his footsteps like Morgan or L’Ollonais. He was just a thief.

England was the underdog in the late 1500s, and had to resort to unconventional warfare to defeat Spain, its mortal enemy and rival. Look at the Spanish Armada: the English won by avoiding a general fleet action. History does tend to be written by the victor, and the English were, in the long term, the victors.

We might disagree that Spain and England had to confront each other to such degree. Nevertheless I can’t agree that England’s practices were unavoidable or, worse, acceptable due to his underdog reality. The fact is that Spain wasn’t at war with England and had by all right not to expect to be marauded upon by any nation nominally at peace with her. The multiple protests by the Spanish ambassador against the very numerous depredations by English pirates say volumes of how Spain hoped to fix this situation by civilized ways. I have written about Drake but can fill pages after pages of similar, if not worse, stories of his cronies during the same historic time or later.

Nevertheless, whatever one may think of Drake's actions and the morality of them, he was important and effective, and as such deserves to be in the game, to allow the English player to repeat some of Drake's successes in the Spanish Main!

I agree completely with you, Drake is/was a part of English/European history and perfectly describe England’s aims and ways during such times.

As for the archivists - I don't think you're doing them any favours by comparing them to the police, who certainly DO have a vested interest in telling the story their way and who in many countries have been found to have falsified or suppressed evidence..

Lol…yeah, damn cops, always trying to hide the proof and change the details. Well, please think about some uncorrupt police here ok? Some who really want to help the society and not become brigands themselves, I’m sure some of these must be out there.

Nor does it mean that everything Drake claimed could be discounted as boasting.

When Drake says he took and plundered Nombre de Dios when obviously he hadn’t then I call this boasting. Or perhaps the Major of NdD ashamed of having been razed and looted, hid all possible evidence of such an action ever happening, and so did the rest of the population and garrison. To bad other cities didn’t follow suite and even admitted paying him of with substantial ransoms. Devious, devious Spaniards…those papists!

As for thievery, Drake's main objective was to damage the enemy -though I dare say personal gain and fame were also motives.

I would say his main objective was the loot but I will give you the benefit of the doubt by portraying Drake as a papist-hating patriot sent out to challenge the odious Spanish dominance of the Americas. Drake began his career as a pirate and by his success in providing his shareholders with substantial gain developed him into a Admiral and national hero. I don’t see any idealism in his first trips when he came to the Caribbean with stolen slaves to trade and changed over to the easy money.

And as for whether war had been declared - the Spanish were believed at the time, not without cause, to be plotting the overthrow of Elizabeth and/or an invasion of England. The Armada wasn't built overnight. Or is that all Hollywood propaganda too?

A perceived threat, real or not doesn’t justify outright warfare upon the other part. Mary’s decapitation shocked the whole of Christian Europe and only Machiavellian interest politics kept the whole of the international community of condemning Elisabeth of such an unmoral deed. Spain felt particularly hurt due to the wedding arrangements done with Phillip II and the moral figure he took as defensor of the faith as the richest Catholic nation afoot. The fleet wasn’t build exclusively to deal with the invasion and mostly was already there in form of civilian vessels. By then Spain had already gone over the edge and accepted open warfare with those who had been tormenting her all along.

The English tried to trade in Spanish America and were denied - was Drake trying to break the monopoly of the Casa de Las Indias? Absolutely, but I suspect he was mostly in it for the money.

Zeee Money, yeah. During the first two expeditions of Hawkins, who began his glorious career together with his brother William in the English channel feeding upon unsuspecting Hanseatic merchant shipping, the “noble” objective was to provide black manpower to the Caribbean. On his first trip, planning his contraband operation together with some Spanish friends in the Canary Islands, he went to Guinea and Sierra Leona where he got quite a lot of slaves but not by hunting them himself but by “liberating” them from other Portuguese ships in the area which he sold in Santo Domingo with great benefits. On his next trip the shareholders grew in numbers and even the Queen herself participated by adding to Hawkins contraband fleet the Royal Navy galleon “Jesus of Lubeck”. The Spanish Ambassador protested, to which the Queen promised not to let the fleet depart (obviously that didn’t happen). After hunting his slaves in Guinea (400) he set sail to the Spanish main, where he sold in different stops most of his cargo till reaching Borburata where faced with difficulties he resorted to outright threats and when agreement was reached he refused to pay the due taxes upon which the took over the city, selling thus his cargo unmolested for up to 140 slaves. Next stop Curacao where the unsuspecting Governor went to meet them by the dock only to get overpowered and used for a ransom of leathers and foodstuff. In Rio del Hacha we see a remake of Borburata. Two more stops at Cartagena and Santa Marta finished his human cargo whereupon he returned to England with even more benefits, giving a 60% win to his shareholders and getting knighted by the Queen, choosing for his shield as Black in chains.
The Ambassador protested again against this way of doing business through threats (although even the Spaniards suspected that there was maybe some dirty deal between Hawkins and the Governor). The next trip was organized by Hawkins but without him as he delegated upon a certain Lowell in finishing the deal. This guy went a step to far while threatening the Spanish Governors, beginning a outright firefight which caused all business to end completely, on their way back they stopped at St. Domingo looting several coastal villages. To notice how each expedition turned more and more piratical in nature and how on this trip a newcomer called Drake participated with enthusiasm.
The next trip included again Hawkins and a decent fleet with now Two Royal Navy Galleons with the Jesus of Lubeck and the Minion apart from several privately owned ships and about 1000 adventurers ready for anything. Again lied the Queen when asked by the Ambassador as to where that fleet was supposed to go. After a brief stop at the Canary Islands they went to Senegambia where they had to fight very energically to just capture 8 blacks against loosing 11 dead and many more wounded. So they decided better to just steal them from some French slave ships nearby. In Sierra Leona they fought on the side of a local King who gave them 300 enemy prisoners as reward. With this cargo they sailed over to America. After some initial commerce at Isla Margarita and Borburata, Drake was sent as first wave with the Judith and two more ships to Rio del Hacha where he was unable to get the Governor to trade so that fighting broke out with loss of life on both sides. As soon as the rest of the fleet arrived, a landing took place and the town was captured, being half of it burned down with the demand of getting 4000 pesos or otherwise the rest would follow suite. After such a example Santa Marta was coaxed into trading under the pirate’s conditions. Cartagena fought so tenaciously back that Hawkins decided to move on. While on route they captured several vessels and from their prisoners found out that the treasure fleet was in Veracruz. Hoping to find the silver already there they swiftly moved in that direction, capturing several other Spanish ships along the way which the put in front of the convoy in order to hide its true origin. Once in Veracruz, the Spaniards thought the fleet was actually the Spanish one with the new Viceroy of Mexico aboard. Thus they sent a boat with high officials to welcome the newcomer. Hawkins coaxed his Spanish prisoners into inviting the officials aboard, once captured he demanded to be let into the harbor and the possession of a small inlet there, decided to wait for the silver train’s arrival. As soon as the real fleet arrived (with only one war galleon and very much in disrepair after the Atlantic crossing) and had anchored in the same harbor, Hawkins demanded all the silver claiming to have the whole city under his power. Soon enough the battle began with the end result of the sinking of one Spanish warship and all the English save of three, the Minion, the Judith and a third smaller ship. The Jesus of Lubeck was captured by the Spanish garrison. From there Drake took of for England keeping all the spoils stored in the Judith for himself while Hawkins lost the smaller vessel and barely made it home, having to stop along the way suffering a serious mutiny from half of his men who refused to cross the Atlantic in such a bad shape ship. Those who stayed back in Tampico where mostly killed by Indians and the rest (78) captured by the Spaniards a little later. Hawkins had a terrible voyage having to resort to eating cooked leather and drinking partially salty water, stopping at Vigo/Spain where, not knowing of their deeds in America they got provided with food and emergency repairs to reach Plymouth.

The reality, as always, was in between. Spain did have an interest in conquering the British Isles, that was the whole point of the Armada of 1588. Defeat England, and at once you (a) secure the downfall of a colonial and naval rival;

That is really a very far-fetched idea and pretty misleading. You know the Armada was sent to provide transport and cover for a Spanish field army supposedly waiting in Flanders to cross over and, far from “conquering” as such things simply didn’t happen back then. To defeat the Protestant forces there and installing again a Catholic monarchy. No Spanish army could realistically “conquer” England as you so put it in a time where Siege was supreme and land battles very rare. That downfall was pretty much secondary as you said yourself, England didn’t have much colonies to compete with Spain. The religious idea was the most important one since there was no other cause for Spanish-English confrontation but one based on religious differences. At that point one could have hoped that still important catholic numbers lived in England who would have welcomed those Spanish contingents.

and (b) deal a possibly fatal blow to the Dutch insurrection.

That would be very much correct.

Spain funded Elizabeth's rivals in England, such as the efforts of Don Bernardino de Mendoza, Spanish ambassador in London, during the early 1580s. This meddling was the reason for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

By that time (early 80’) Spain had already suffered way enough English depredations upon her merchant fleet and colonies in order to warrant a series of countermeasures which I could hardly describe as “meddling” at such point in the game but rather retributions against an openly war faring England.

 

[Owl]

May I in all seriousness congratulate Ebusitanus and others on this thread for their patient and thorough explanations. You're not going to convince us that Spain was innocent of all charges, or that Drake was "just a thief", but it's good to hear the other side of the story for once.

Of course, the level of interest shown in the subject merely confirms that he should have been in the game all along...

One point on the morality of his actions. If we are to apply 21st Century standards in judging Drake's looting, we should keep sight of the fact that all of this loot had been stolen by the Spanish from the indigenous Americans.....

 

[Ebusitanus]

Well...Yes, I can't argue against that nor was I tryin to make Spain look as a model of goodness either and certainly they did their fair share of misdoings against the heathens in America, although I hope you wont try to make me believe that the English had that fact in mind when looting the Spanish main, as mistreatment of indigenous people was nothing uncommon back then and Anglosaxon treatment of their share of indigenous people was far harsher than the Spanish one.
Funny on the other hand is D. Marlborough explanation of Hawkins pirate fleet presence at Veracruz as a mere coincidence while doing "repairs". If you look at the map you will see that from their last "trading" stop at Cartagena to Veracruz you have certainly to take quite a hike out of your way when they had nothing left to trade with.
His aim was to plunder the Spanish silver getting loaded there on the New Spain Fleet and his previous and actions on site quite prove that. To show Hawkins expedition as a peaceful "trading" venture is pretty far fetched and real wishful thinking.
As I said on my previous post, Hawkins got the idea of Veracruz from those Spanish vessels he captured out of Cartagena. He got it precisely from a Spanish merchant vessel under Agustin de Villanueva on route to St. Domingo. Once set his mind to go to Veracruz he captured two more spanish vessels which he located in front of his convoy to hide his nationality. As said the spaniards thought them the actual fleet to arrive for the silver and to carry the New Viceroy of Mexico de Almansa. Thus deciving the port authorities they captured Martin de Marcana and Francisco Bustamante, two big spanish officals who went to welcome the new Viceroy and who got on the Ship convinced by those same Spanish prisoners already onboard. From this capture Hawkins coaxed the authorities into telling them that he came for "repairs" and only wished top enter the port but as a guarantee he demanded the possesion of a small island inside the port which had a artillery battery on it. Otherwise, he said, he would kill the prisoners plus the captured officials and land his men to capture the port itself. The Spanairds agreed in exchange for all the prisoners. The silver train hadn't arrived yet and Hawkins decided to wait for it. Soon enough the real Spanish fleet arrived with the New Viceroy who got informed already in route by a intercepting spanish fast ship. This fleet had 13 galleons but only one of war all pretty messed up after the long Atlantic journey. It was decided nevertheless to enter port and so passed in front of Hawkins and his peers. Shortly after Hawkins sent the New Viceroy a message threateing him to destroy the whole city which he claimed had as hostage if his demands weren't met. The fight was cleary unavoidable and began shortly after with the sinking of one of the Spanish Galleons ful of aracbusiers next to the pirate fleet. Next the fight was inconclusive as each other kept pounding the nearest enemy with much loss of life and materials. A Spanish detachement landed on the battery island capturing her back from pirate hands whp fled to the nerby Minion. The Galleon Jesus of Lubeck was boarded and captured, that same evening the combat continued with the sinking of the Angel and the Swallow and the burning down of the French slave ship captured by Hawkins in Guinea. Three more ships were captured by the Spaniards and the rest took off with already explained consecuences.
And so upon Hawkins and Drake's return to England, this expedition which had burned down Rio del Hacha and captured numerous Spanish vessels was suddenly a "peaceful comerce expedition". The shame also of having lost a Royal Navy Galleon in this thieves business venture made the English Goverment into backing them up as good comercing men. Not much time was lost by those same criminal shareholder to organize new expeditions with the backing of the Queen. Drake was himself very much interested in returning while saying cynically "The Spaniards owed him much money" refering to the silver they could have stolen from Veracuz.

 

[Viking]

To the DAFT members.

1. Errol Flynn was english and moved to hollywood.
2. Errol Flynn did duel with a FRENCH pirate played by Basil Rathbone on a deserted carribean beach. Spaniards were dispatched with gun or cannon not being worthy of equal combat.
3. Errol Flynn never played Drake.
4. Errol Flynn did play "Essex" (based on dudley, loosely, very loosley) in an Elizabethan era film. Betty Davis as QEI iirc.

 

[Owl]

I've checked ....

Originally posted by Viking
To the DAFT members.

1. Errol Flynn was english and moved to hollywood.
2. Errol Flynn did duel with a FRENCH pirate played by Basil Rathbone on a deserted carribean beach. Spaniards were dispatched with gun or cannon not being worthy of equal combat.
3. Errol Flynn never played Drake.
4. Errol Flynn did play "Essex" (based on dudley, loosely, very loosley) in an Elizabethan era film. Betty Davis as QEI iirc.

EF was actually born in Tasmania, so we were both wrong. He may of course have been technically British by virtue of his parents or the fact that it was a colony - but neither "English" nor "a bloody Yank".
The duel with Basil R was in that film wher he DID play a pirate, based on Capt Morgan ("Captain Blood"?)
EF did play Drake (or a character based on him) in "The Sea Hawk". THe Dudley film was "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex".

 

[BiB]

Note to Ebusitanus : use paragraphes

 

[Owl]

Originally posted by BiB
Note to Ebusitanus : use paragraphes

Yeah, if we can't beat him on historical analysis we'll have him on grammar and presentation skills ...

 

[BiB]

Well, I didn't try and read that! Earlier when it was nicely divided it was interesting, now it's a health hazard

 

[Ebusitanus]

Originally posted by BiB
Well, I didn't try and read that! Earlier when it was nicely divided it was interesting, now it's a health hazard

Ugh!...me no good...me primitive mediterranean..ugh!
Sorry, got carried away writing and never even re-read it
Speed over quality I fear...<gasp>

 

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Originally posted by BiB
Well, I didn't try and read that! Earlier when it was nicely divided it was interesting, now it's a health hazard

More of a treasure trove of interesting information. Believe me. I read it.

 

[Idiotboy]

I agree, someone really know his stuff.

 

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Buen trabajo, Ebu

 

[Johnny Canuck]

Ebusitanus - First off, just let me say that your knowledge base is very impressive, even if I don't always agree with your interpretations! This Archive of Indies, is it in any published form, or are you getting the information direct from the primary documents themselves?

There are a couple points I want to comment on:

Originally posted by Ebusitanus
England was the underdog in the late 1500s, and had to resort to unconventional warfare to defeat Spain, its mortal enemy and rival. Look at the Spanish Armada: the English won by avoiding a general fleet action. History does tend to be written by the victor, and the English were, in the long term, the victors.

We might disagree that Spain and England had to confront each other to such degree. Nevertheless I can’t agree that England’s practices were unavoidable or, worse, acceptable due to his underdog reality. The fact is that Spain wasn’t at war with England and had by all right not to expect to be marauded upon by any nation nominally at peace with her. The multiple protests by the Spanish ambassador against the very numerous depredations by English pirates say volumes of how Spain hoped to fix this situation by civilized ways. I have written about Drake but can fill pages after pages of similar, if not worse, stories of his cronies during the same historic time or later.

Again, I would say that, while nothing in history is inevitable, a Spanish-English rivalry in the late 1500s was pretty close to inevitable from 1558 onwards. Elizabeth's hold on power in the early years of her reign was always quite weak. Her lot was with the English Protestants, and her throne depended on their support. If England had not taken up the Protestant cause in foreign affairs, her reign might have come to a quick end. Taking up the Protestant cause meant that England had to show some support for the Dutch rebels, which naturally ensured that Spain would become a rival and an enemy. I don't doubt there are savage stories of Drake & his friends. But as I said before, war is war, and rarely pretty, especially when unconventional means are utilized.

And as for whether war had been declared - the Spanish were believed at the time, not without cause, to be plotting the overthrow of Elizabeth and/or an invasion of England. The Armada wasn't built overnight. Or is that all Hollywood propaganda too?

A perceived threat, real or not doesn’t justify outright warfare upon the other part. Mary’s decapitation shocked the whole of Christian Europe and only Machiavellian interest politics kept the whole of the international community of condemning Elisabeth of such an unmoral deed. Spain felt particularly hurt due to the wedding arrangements done with Phillip II and the moral figure he took as defensor of the faith as the richest Catholic nation afoot. The fleet wasn’t build exclusively to deal with the invasion and mostly was already there in form of civilian vessels. By then Spain had already gone over the edge and accepted open warfare with those who had been tormenting her all along.

The whole reason that Mary Queen of Scots was decapitated was because within months of Mary's escape to England in 1568, the Spanish, via their ambassador Don Guerau de Spes, began supporting those who wished to depose Elizabeth and crown Mary. For example, the Spanish lent support to the Northern Rebellion of 1569-1570, especially in its promise to support the new (obviously Catholic) government. Philip II & the Duke of Alva in the Dutch provinces knew of the rising beforehand, though the latter advised against supporting the plotters. The Spanish were also plotting with Irish rebels, including Shane O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, from as early as 1562. Doubtless, the execution of Mary Queen of Scots shocked much of Christian Europe. However, the act was justified in that, as long as Mary lived, it provided the best chance for the Spanish to overthrow Elizabeth & ensure a compliant regime in England.

The reality, as always, was in between. Spain did have an interest in conquering the British Isles, that was the whole point of the Armada of 1588. Defeat England, and at once you (a) secure the downfall of a colonial and naval rival;

That is really a very far-fetched idea and pretty misleading. You know the Armada was sent to provide transport and cover for a Spanish field army supposedly waiting in Flanders to cross over and, far from “conquering” as such things simply didn’t happen back then. To defeat the Protestant forces there and installing again a Catholic monarchy. No Spanish army could realistically “conquer” England as you so put it in a time where Siege was supreme and land battles very rare. That downfall was pretty much secondary as you said yourself, England didn’t have much colonies to compete with Spain. The religious idea was the most important one since there was no other cause for Spanish-English confrontation but one based on religious differences. At that point one could have hoped that still important catholic numbers lived in England who would have welcomed those Spanish contingents.

Actually, I agree with you on this. When I used the term "conquer," I did not mean it in the modern sense of occupying & annexing the entire country & ruling it as a Spanish province. Instead, the idea is to ensure a compliant England, one that would provide no trouble to Spain in Europe or overseas, would acknowledge the Spanish trading rights, and would support Spain in suppressing the Dutch rebels.

Spain funded Elizabeth's rivals in England, such as the efforts of Don Bernardino de Mendoza, Spanish ambassador in London, during the early 1580s. This meddling was the reason for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

By that time (early 80’) Spain had already suffered way enough English depredations upon her merchant fleet and colonies in order to warrant a series of countermeasures which I could hardly describe as “meddling” at such point in the game but rather retributions against an openly war faring England.

The example of de Mendoza was just the one I used at the time. There are plenty of other examples of Spanish meddling, as I wrote above. The Spanish had a long record of undermining Elizabeth's rule with the aim of deposing her from the early 1560s, about the same time that the English pirates began their campaign against Spanish trade. I wouldn't say that either came first, or that one caused the other. Instead, I would argue that both were a result of the fact that, by the 1560s, they both saw the other as an important rival and enemy.

Finally, the Armada of 1588 had been in preparation for six years, and I believe an early "Armada" had been attempted in the early 1570s, but had been diverted to support the campaign against the Dutch. Also, there were four other "Armadas" attempted from 1596 to 1602, most of which amounted to nothing, although the last landed 5000 Spanish troops at Kinsale in Ireland in 1602.

 

[Ebusitanus]

I wouldn't really like to get this thread to be dragged into a broader Spanish-English geo-political analysis of the origins and results of the Elisabethtian coup against Mary.
Sufice to say that while from a Elithabetian stand point it would make sense to oppose logic retributory Spanish negative influence, from a Spanish standpoint it is pretty obvious that Spain in her role as defensor of the faith and all the burden upon her heredated by the Habsburgs commitments throughout Europe had to take some action when Mary (Philip's wife for christ sake) was kicked out of the throne, and the same people who were giving Philip so much headaches in the Netherlands suddenly took over there too. Please, stop for a second and step into Spain's shoes. Rememeber, this was not EU2 where your moral commitments to a cause are pretty fluid...Spain had a position to defend a huge dynastic inheritance and several Imperial throne generations. Never mind that I can assure you that if I could teletransport myself back then and take over Philip's throne I would have done quite diferently religiously, militrary and politically. But Philip was a prisoner of his own cirumstances.

While I really want to diferentiate between this notion of this series of Hawkins and Drakes as tools or messengers of the English will regarding Spanish overseas interests. I don't see there a planned politic of influence by sending off these individuals to, as somebody said here, attack England's enemies. Rather I see here a pure benefit oriented series of expeditions who turned more and more barbarous in clear acordance with who was actually commanding them.
It is later, with the fame and raising benefit margin, that these otherwise foggy individuals became, or were dressed up by the powers that be, as "respectable" and lined up with official titles and knighthoods. This, again, has nothing to do with their capabilities as Admirals or explorers or whatever gifts you want to surround them. I'm in favor of having them in the game, ok?
On this repeating notion of Drake & Co. using "unconventional" ways to bring warfare upon the Spanish "enemy" I will have to disagree as wheras such intentions ever existed in the first place during the initial expeditions, at least up until open warfare between both nations, after that Drake only used in that war what he knew best doing, and that was looting for own profit (with the new added bonus of glory).

 

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Originally posted by Ebusitanus
I wouldn't really like to get this thread to be dragged into a broader Spanish-English geo-political analysis of the origins and results of the Elisabethtian coup against Mary.
Sufice to say that while from a Elithabetian stand point it would make sense to oppose logic retributory Spanish negative influence, from a Spanish standpoint it is pretty obvious that Spain in her role as defensor of the faith and all the burden upon her heredated by the Habsburgs commitments throughout Europe had to take some action when Mary (Philip's wife for christ sake) was kicked out of the throne, and the same people who were giving Philip so much headaches in the Netherlands suddenly took over there too. Please, stop for a second and step into Spain's shoes. Rememeber, this was not EU2 where your moral commitments to a cause are pretty fluid...Spain had a position to defend a huge dynastic inheritance and several Imperial throne generations. Never mind that I can assure you that if I could teletransport myself back then and take over Philip's throne I would have done quite diferently religiously, militrary and politically. But Philip was a prisoner of his own cirumstances.

While I really want to diferentiate between this notion of this series of Hawkins and Drakes as tools or messengers of the English will regarding Spanish overseas interests. I don't see there a planned politic of influence by sending off these individuals to, as somebody said here, attack England's enemies. Rather I see here a pure benefit oriented series of expeditions who turned more and more barbarous in clear acordance with who was actually commanding them.
It is later, with the fame and raising benefit margin, that these otherwise foggy individuals became, or were dressed up by the powers that be, as "respectable" and lined up with official titles and knighthoods. This, again, has nothing to do with their capabilities as Admirals or explorers or whatever gifts you want to surround them. I'm in favor of having them in the game, ok?
On this repeating notion of Drake & Co. using "unconventional" ways to bring warfare upon the Spanish "enemy" I will have to disagree as wheras such intentions ever existed in the first place during the initial expeditions, at least up until open warfare between both nations, after that Drake only used in that war what he knew best doing, and that was looting for own profit (with the new added bonus of glory).

The thing is I don't think too many people are disagreeing. Even the most fervent Drake supporter here has never said he was some paragon of virtue - he was certainly a pirate.

What made him a privateer was that he was a pirate with the tacit blessing of the English crown, which saw him and his ilk as a way to slow down the Spanish until England was ready for a confrontation.

All that is irrelevant since many of your posts support the fact that he was a very able sea captain, just a bit of a scoundrel.

 

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Originally posted by sean9898
Could the Wellington bashers please point me to a battle he lost?

As well as defeating the Marshals who defeated other European powers, he did manage to not only defeat, but completely wipe out the Emperor's army, despite being outnumbered for most of the day.

His Spanish campaigns are remarkable, outnumbered in almost every battle he completely dispelled the notion of French superiority, at a time when their armies swept everything else before them.

Wellington should be a 6-6-6-0, as his siege capabilities were not exceptional, he rushed the sieges of Badajoz and Ciudad Roderigo, and had a distinct distaste for night attacks.

If one only looked at his Indian campaigns he would go down as a great general, and for those of you who think he could only defend; at Assaye, against an organized, European-style army with a cannon advantage, he attacked and destroyed the enemy despite being outnumbered 8:1.

Wellington is more than Waterloo, and an even passing knowledge of his achievements would avoid one falling into the same trap as Napoleon and dismissing the Sepoy General as average.

Do you really think he was as good at shock or maneuver (read maneuver as managing large armies) as Napoleon?

I have a great deal of respect for Wellington, but I think he is at best unproven in those regards. Napoleon regularly commanded armies much larger than the British ever fielded (who were quite famous for the "thin red line", and where on earth did the Brits ever use shock effectively?

He should have a great fire skill, preferably better than Napoleon's I'd say (though Napy did start off as an artillery commander), but in all other stats he shouldn't be Napoleon's equal, if for no other reason than leaders lose some character when they the great ones all have the same stats.

 

[Ebusitanus]

Originally posted by satan

The thing is I don't think too many people are disagreeing. Even the most fervent Drake supporter here has never said he was some paragon of virtue - he was certainly a pirate.

What made him a privateer was that he was a pirate with the tacit blessing of the English crown, which saw him and his ilk as a way to slow down the Spanish until England was ready for a confrontation.

All that is irrelevant since many of your posts support the fact that he was a very able sea captain, just a bit of a scoundrel.

Ok...big diference, Pirate and Privateer...A Privateer is basically a privately operated vessel who is allowed to keep the spoils from attaking the enemies of the nation who gave him is letter of marque and no other. Since Spain and England weren't at war that makes Drake a pirate, a lawless individual who once captured is sent to the gallows directly. That the English crown agreed in letting him do his hobby during the oficial peace time wouldn't say much of the moral temper of such a Queen/King, the fact that not only that but that Drake and Hawkins were repeatly provided with weapons and vessels from the Royal Navy plus some monetary help just makes that Queen by all standards little better than them. Its you who say that there was some "higher" goal behind looting colonies and ships as a (lol) efective way to check Spain's growth or equalitze resources...lol..(Oh, man)..sorry but this is just so funny...
Why don't you just call it for what it is/was...they craved Spain's riches and tried to bottom feed upon them by assaulting where she was the weakest, its colonies and un convoyed vessels.
You really believe Elisabeth sat down with her counselors and they agreed this way was the best to defeat Spain?...Oh C'mon
Pirates or privateers are there for their own benefit, being any beneficial side result purely accidental.
On a practical sense the filibusters who assaulted the South American shores were some knid of mixture between the semi legal privateer and the "free for all" pirate...actually kind of the worst from both camps. Pirates they were without doubt since they had no letter of marque provided by any nation at war with Spain. But on the other hand they were never discouraged (to say the least) by certain European powers, oficially at peace, nevertheless opposed to the Spanish monarchy. Those Elisabethian expeditions were little more than organized looting trips set up as shareholding businesses where the biggest nobles including the own Queen had their interest in.

Too bad Spain never fought (discounting some very limited exceptions) back with the same weapons of privateering since Ferdinand "the Catholic" had made them completely illegal at 1489 since he considered such practices as inmoral.
I personally love this instance were during Spain's fourt French war 1542-44 were this French privateer called Jean Alphonse de Saintonge won fame by assaulting and looting the por of La Luz in the Canary Islands. So selfconfident was this guy that when the war was over he kept of assaulting vessels which he took to his home base at La Rochelle. But this time even up there he was followed by the Great Pedro Menendez de Aviles who went straight after him into the harbor and once he got all five of the pirate's preys he assaulted himself the pirate's ensign Le Marie killing Saintonge and most of his crew. To bad the wind was against him and he wasn't able to leave port inmediatly and got thus hailed by the Governor to surrender or face the guns of the fortress. But the Spaniard argued that his victim had been a pirate and not a privateer since both nations were at peace. He could leave finally the port with all his prey back to Spain.
This is the same man who dispached quickly with the French Hugenot base in Florida with so much bloodshed.