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The Armada (The American Heritage Library)
 
 
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The Armada (The American Heritage Library) (Paperback)

by Garrett Mattingly (Author) "MR. BEALE had not brought the warrant until Sunday evening but by Wednesday morning, before dawn outlined its high windows, the great hall at Fotheringhay..." (more)
Key Phrases: seaward wing, culverin shot, poop lantern, Medina Sidonia, Santa Cruz, San Martin (more...)
4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)


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Product Description
This award-­winning story of the defeat of the Spanish Armada has been hailed as a historical masterpiece. The book covers Queen Elizabeth's reign over a turbulent nation, while the Duke of Parma plans the invasion of England from the Netherlands. The crucial period from February 1587 to December 1588 is presented in a series of detailed, dramatic scenes. The second part of the book is devoted to the naval battle from the first sight of the Armada off the Scilly Isles to the return of its broken remnants to the ports of Spain.

About the Author
Garrett Mattingly (1900–1962) was a historian, educator, and best-selling author. He served with the U.S. Navy in World War II and in 1948 joined the faculty of Columbia University, where he taught European history.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 443 pages
  • Publisher: Mariner Books (December 13, 1974)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0395083664
  • ISBN-13: 978-0395083666
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,010,494 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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4.7 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Narrative History at its best ..., September 19, 2000
By Toby Joyce (Blanchardstown, Dublin Ireland) - See all my reviews
No one would write a book about the Armada quite like this again - during the quadcentenial (1988), the interest seemed to focus on the ships, armaments and tactics. Mattingley is weak on these, and if that is your prime interest, look to Geoffrey Parkers book published in 1988. However, for narrative force, characterization and political background, Mattingley has no equals. For me, his account of the Armada, published over 40 years ago , is still the best by far. The narrative swings from Low Counries, to Madrid, to Cadiz, to Paris, finally to the Channel and Calais, then back to France. Mattingley shows that the defeat of the Armada ensured the survival of the Reformation and (not least) the independent survival of England, France and the Netherlands. Yet he is even handed at every stage, indeed Medina-Sidonia (the Armada's commander) is one of the heroes. Other heroes are Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Parma and Henri III of France. Well, maybe anti-hero for Henri III, Henri of Navarre (Henri IV to come) is the true French hero. Indeed, for me, the nastiest figures in the book are not Spanish at all. One is Henri of Guise, Philip's co-conspirator in France, and Sir Francis Drake, who comes across as both paranoid and greedy. Read and be transfixed by its narrative sweep - each chapter is like a dramatic news bulletin adding to the powerful impact of the unfolding story.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Debunking Collective Memory and Highlighting Diplomacy, June 27, 2002
This review is from: The Armada (Hardcover)
Given Mattingly's insight into Mendova's political manuevers in Paris, Philip II's understanding of European powers, and the role of the Catholic Church in European politics, this was required reading for a college course on European Diplomacy (1500-1918). While a naval historian might find fault in the lack of details and maps, Mattingly does cover the moves and countermoves by the English and Spanish reasonably well, especially for novice sailors like me. However, Mattingly correctly focuses on the lasting influence of the English Enterprise by the Spanish Armada: the flawed belief of a power shift in European politics and the myth(s) it produced.

Yes, in keeping with the title of the book, the moves by Spanish Armada are covered in a "daily diary" format, which actually serves to better highlight the real driving force of this work. Mattingly loves to dive into all the source material available and gain a sense of the diplomacy, delayed communication, and potential thoughts of the majors players. In doing so, Mattingly presents all the rumors and views (circa 1588), shows how historians have ran with those "facts" (now rooted in a collective memory), but he then corrects and deals those assumptions as flawed, baseless, or plausible. For example, Drake is often given credit for defeating the Spanish Armada, though he was not in command of the British fleet. Contrary to some stories, the Spanish were not damned by poor weather, but actually had the best seas imaginable. These are minor points, but were often touchstones for historical and political spinning. Mattingly does well in not only debunking these "truths" but in determining when and why they began.

This is not revisionist history in the "politically correct" sense of the word. Rather, it lays out the various stories, notes the points of the bias, and seeks to synthesize a coherent story given the available primary sources. Mattingly presents history as it should be - a clear story driven by primary sources which respects the prism of bias inherent in sources.

Buy this book.

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A classic worthy of the title, January 29, 2007
By Timothy J. Graczewski "tgraczewski" (Burlingame, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
This review is from: The Armada (Paperback)
Not all "classics" of history age as well as Garrett Mattingly's "The Armada," which was first published in 1959 to coincide with the quadricentennial of Philip II's failed attempt at the so-called "Enterprise of England." His scholarship may be subject to legitimate contemporary scrutiny and reassessment, but his writing is timeless.

The naval commander of the Spanish Armada, the duke of Medina Sidonia, emerges as the unlikely hero in Mattingly's narrative of the epic events in the fateful year of 1588. Medina Sidonia has for centuries been the primary scapegoat for the failure of the Armada, a fate that the duke himself perpetuated by taking blame for the disaster and frequently admitting that he was not up to the challenge. Mattingly's rejoinder is "hogwash" - Medina Sidonia did an admirable job in leading the Armada to within a whisker of success despite the tremendous odds stacked against it for a variety of reasons. The author suggests that Horatio Nelson himself could have done no better than the much-maligned duke. As far as finger pointing goes, Mattingly condemns the duke of Parma, the Spanish land commander in the Netherlands and generally considered the greatest general of the age, for his failures to be adequately prepared to meet the Armada and sail on to the invasion of England. (Modern scholars such as Geoffrey Parker have vigorously defended Parma's performance recently.)

Mattingly focuses on several aspects of the naval engagement itself that are worthy of note and rather counter to conventional wisdom. To begin with, he rightfully stresses the unprecedented nature of the sea battles that ensued when the Armada met the English fleet off the southern coast of England in the first week of August 1588. Never before had fleets of such size met in running combat. A change so dramatic in naval warfare would not happen again, Mattingly writes, until 1942 when the US and Japanese fleets engaged in a contest of aircraft carriers fighting each other over the horizon. Thus, all major naval battles from 1588 to 1942 differ only in ship design and tactics, not in any other fundamental way. And Mattingly notes that the four naval engagements that occurred along the south English coast from the Eddystone to the Isle of Wight were each far larger in terms of ships engaged and shots fired than all other sea battles before them.

Perhaps most surprising is Mattingly's generally positive assessment of Spanish seamanship, discipline and tactics, and his argument that the "revolutionary" English strategy of long-range heavy bombardment from more mobile "race built" ship designs was largely a failure (for some reason the author makes no mention of the four-wheel artillery carriage design that did so much to add firepower and rate of fire to English ships). Indeed, Mattingly asserts that Sir Francis Drake's destruction of a depot of barrel staves at St. Francis Cape in 1587 that were destined for the Armada did as much, if not more, than anything else to cripple the Spanish fleet because they were forced to sail with green wood barrels that caused much of their water and food to putrefy. And the greatest English advantage in the entire campaign, according to Mattingly, was that the battles occurred close to home ports so they could quickly and easily resupply critical items like powder, ammunition, and victuals, all of which the English ships ran out of on several occasions during the week. If the English fleet had met the Armada off the coast of Portugal, as many had argued for, they would have been forced to break off the engagement after just one or two battles of the ferocity and intensity that occurred off the English coast.

Much has been made of the English advantage in leadership and crew experience and the outdated Spanish "crescent" arrangement, which was the common deployment of gallies in the Mediterranean but totally unsuited, many have argued, for naval warfare in the open ocean against huge warships. But Mattingly writes that the crescent was the perfect formation for the Armada's essentially defensive task - secure passage through the Channel, rendezvous with the Parma's army, and escort the convoy across. Time and again, the author lauds Medina Sidonia and the Spanish sailors for keeping in formation and sliding past the tactically superior English fleet on their way through the Channel. Meanwhile, the English were frustrated by the inability of their advantage in long-range gunnery and superior maneuverability to destroy the Spanish warships located at the horns of the crescent. It was only the famed fireships that ultimately caused the Armada's formation to lose cohesion and thus vulnerable to English decimation.

So, was the defeat of the Armada really all that decisive? Militarily speaking, Mattingly says "no." The Spanish were able to recover, defeat the Drake-led invasion of Portugal the next year, and continued to fight Elizabeth and import bullion across the Atlantic for decades. Politically speaking, the author says "yes," the failure of the Armada to link with Parma and invade England permanently undermined Spanish prestige and influence in Europe, ushering in the ultimate defeat of the Counter-Reformation that Philip II championed and led in many ways.

All in all, a great book that is both fun to read and informative.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Another book about the Armada.........
This is another book about the spanish armada, one of the many that exists about this topic. What i would like to see is for some author to write a book about the "Battle of... Read more
Published 15 days ago by A. Senalle

5.0 out of 5 stars Dramatic, amazing story behind the story
Pros: History is so much more than dates, and the depth of Mattingly's work is staggering. The history of England, Spain, and the U.S. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Nancy E. Turner

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written
Thoroughly enjoyable read on the history surrounding the Spanish Armada and its adventures against the English in 1588. Read more
Published 6 months ago by G. Moon

5.0 out of 5 stars Was it really this exciting...YES
A truly unique style that we all should strive to emulate

The story this author tells is truly an amazing one not necessarily an untold story but he tells it in such... Read more
Published 7 months ago by General Pete

4.0 out of 5 stars A Classic of Narrative History - It Makes Elizabethan History Almost As Exciting As It Really Was
"The Armada" by Garrett Mattingly is a classic of narrative history. It tells the entire story of the Spanish naval attack on Elizabethan England from the beginning of the many... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Stephen A. Hammack

5.0 out of 5 stars The Armada
A classic since it first hit print, and deservedly so. Garrett Mattingly's The Armada will put you at Sir Francis Drake's elbow on board the Elizabeth Bonaventure when he sails... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Dana Stabenow

5.0 out of 5 stars The Armada
Wonderfully put together piece of writing. Not as boring as textbook, but not quite a novel...Mattingly's piece is extremely readable and easier to relate to than a more didactic... Read more
Published 21 months ago by C. Stewart

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than a novel
This is an absolute page-turner on the Invincible Armada and its demise before Calais in the fateful year 1588. Read more
Published on June 16, 2004 by Boileau0663

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Amazing!
This has got to be one of the absolute best historical books on the Armada. Not only on the Armada but on the politics on the continent as it pertained to England and Spain. Read more
Published on January 29, 2003 by Brian Hawkinson

3.0 out of 5 stars Hail Britiannia
A very readable account of (one of) the moment(s) England was challenged by a continental power and Europe hung in the balance. Read more
Published on December 5, 2001 by David Bradley

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