by Gregg Loomis
Second, Frobisher did, in fact, accompany Drake as did a number of British naval heroes including John Hawkins who sailed on a ship bearing his name.
Third, I could find no consistent accounts of exactly how many ships Drake had in total, only seven major vessels and varying numbers for the others.
Navigation in the sixteenth century was problematic. Although determining latitude had been done for centuries by noting the angle of the North Star or the altitude of the sun at noon, it was not until the late eighteenth century that it became possible to precisely determine longitude at sea. The process involved not only measuring speed but time, a difficult process when a ship’s movement in rough seas battered the clocks then available. The fact Dee’s instrument could have aided in this process is my invention, not fact.
The use of “comrade” in addressing other members of a communist society has changed slightly in The Peoples’ Democratic Republic of Korea. Tonginu, one who is working in the revolution, is the current word. I’ve chosen to translate it as the equivalent of the more traditional usage.
The Spanish Armada of 1588 engaged in a running seven-day battle, an attempt by Phillip II of Spain to finally conquer the kingdom he had co-ruled until his wife, Mary Tudor (A/K/A “Bloody Mary”), died and Elizabeth became queen. The general idea was to send a fleet to pick up an army of around 30,000 (a huge number in those days) in the Spanish Netherlands under the Duke of Palma along with shallow-draft landing boats, then invade England. It has to be one of the most poorly planned military maneuvers ever undertaken. The commander of the fleet had no idea where Palma and his army were, nor were there any ports that could be used for embarkation of that number of troops. Plus the flatboats never materialized.
Spanish naval tactics at the time consisted of firing a volley of cannon before the gunners armed themselves to board the enemy. The English with their smaller, more maneuverable ships stood their distance, pounding the Spanish with cannon fire. Constant attack by Dutch rebels in small, shallow-draft boats, an attack by fire ships while the Armada was crowded into the harbor at Calais, unfavorable winds, and a huge storm that scattered the fleet gave the Spanish no choice but to sail north around the tips of Scotland and Ireland into the open Atlantic to get home. Over a third of their one hundred thirty ships were lost.
Although, as noted above, John Dee predicted the attempted invasion, there is no evidence he witnessed any part of it or that his mysterious “compass” played a part in a victory attributable as much to Spanish incompetence and bad luck as to English seamanship. There no evidence to the contrary, either. The Duke of Essex was Elizabeth’s army commander in the wars in Ireland in the 1590’s, so I’ve placed him at Plymouth a couple of years earlier although at the time, England had no standing army, only the “trained bande,” a group of veterans of other wars that could be summoned somewhat like today’s National Guard.
I believe the phrase is “literary license.”
Drake’s continuance of his game in sight of the Spanish fleet may be legendary or fact but in either case was not an act of bravado. He had little choice but to wait. The English fleet was stuck in harbor until the incoming tide changed some hours later.
Raleigh was the last of the famed Sea Dogs. He was accused of consorting and plotting with Catholics and convicted on what today we would view as questionable evidence. Elizabeth’s successor, James I (James VI of Scotland), had him imprisoned in the Tower where he lived with his wife and family until the King sent him on an expedition to search for gold in South America. The venture ended not only in failure but with Raleigh being charged with piracy for raiding settlements of England’s new ally, Spain. Raleigh was returned to the tower and beheaded.
Although knighted, he was never a lord. Dee’s addressing him as such was an acceptable flattery at the time.
The description of Elizabeth’s last days is accurate. Lord Chamberlain’s Men was the name of Shakespeare’s acting company who did, in fact, put on a play for the queen at Whitehall, most likely Twelfth Night during Epiphany 1601.
January, 2015
