This book is filled with pleasant surprises. First, it is a genuine “page turner,” one I rushed in the beginning and then deliberately lingered on from about midway, trying to forestall the end of a great book. Second, it is superbly written by a master of the art, recreating the drama, mystery, and misery of the Armada’s experience with a nice balance between sympathy and objectivity. Third, it is good history. Long an admirer of Garrett Mattingly’s classic The Armada (1959), I began Howarth’s book with some skepticism: no footnotes, no formal bibliography, nothing to indicate the meticulous time-consuming investment of the scholar in research before the writing. The author has plumbed brilliantly, however, the many printed sources and pieced together one of modern history’s greatest stories, the defeat of the Spanish Armada of 1588. Launched by Philip II to attack Protestant (read heretic) England, it was doomed from the moment it began to assemble in Lisbon. Its leaders, especially the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a reluctant landsman drafted by Philip to command the Armada, were loyal and brave, but committed to a deadly errand by a sovereign who did not comprehend the tactical or strategic problems of such a monumental undertaking.
One nagging flaw is the lack of an adequate map to follow the track of the Armada in detail. For those interested in more illustrations, paintings, and drawings, both contemporary and modern—as well as a good map—turn to the Time-Life Seafarer Series volume entitled The Armada (1981). For a great summer read, however, pick up Howarth’s compelling and compassionate account.
