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In the summer of 1588, England stood alone against the greatest superpower the world had ever seen. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:18 | |
A vast Spanish invasion fleet, the mightiest ever assembled, | 0:00:21 | 0:00:25 | |
was sweeping towards the Channel, | 0:00:25 | 0:00:28 | |
and the only thing that stood between the invaders and the conquest of England | 0:00:28 | 0:00:33 | |
were the ships of the Royal Navy. | 0:00:33 | 0:00:35 | |
Together with my son Dan I'll be tracing day by day | 0:00:36 | 0:00:40 | |
the massive struggle that took place in these very waters. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:44 | |
For a week the future of the British Isles depended on the bravery and skill of the English sailors. | 0:00:44 | 0:00:51 | |
None of them had ever fought a battle on this scale before. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:55 | |
Faced with this overwhelming force, | 0:00:58 | 0:01:01 | |
they had to use new tactics and new technologies to outwit the Spanish. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:06 | |
They pushed themselves and their ships to the limit. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:11 | |
I'll be exploring how the opposing commanders used very different strategies, | 0:01:11 | 0:01:18 | |
and how chance played a key role in deciding the fate of both sides. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:23 | |
And I'll be finding out just how effective their weapons were. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:28 | |
And trying out the revolutionary sailing techniques that swung the battle. | 0:01:35 | 0:01:40 | |
The skill of the English, the agility of the boats - we had never encountered anything like that. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:47 | |
For the Spanish, it was a religious crusade against an island of heretics and pirates. | 0:01:49 | 0:01:55 | |
For the English, it was a battle for survival against the might of a Spanish armada. | 0:01:55 | 0:02:01 | |
In 1588, | 0:02:22 | 0:02:23 | |
Spain was busy assembling a vast fleet, an armada. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:28 | |
Spain was the largest superpower on Earth, | 0:02:32 | 0:02:36 | |
and this armada would be the greatest concentration of naval power ever assembled. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:42 | |
Its purpose - to invade and conquer England. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:48 | |
Spain was Catholic and wanted a Catholic world. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:02 | |
Spain's King Philip II was a man driven by religious obsession. | 0:03:05 | 0:03:10 | |
For him, empire building was about extending the power of the Catholic Church. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:16 | |
Standing in his way was Protestant England, led by heretic Queen Elizabeth. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:22 | |
It is the duty of every Catholic to make sure that Queen Elizabeth is killed. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:28 | |
They are a barbarous, savage race... | 0:03:28 | 0:03:32 | |
..who need to be brought into line, | 0:03:33 | 0:03:36 | |
who need the grace of God. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:38 | |
And God willing, we will drive them into the seas and show them that grace. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:43 | |
But the conflict between England and Spain wasn't just about religion. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:50 | |
Spain's empire spanned half the globe | 0:03:53 | 0:03:56 | |
and it controlled all the riches of the New World. | 0:03:56 | 0:04:00 | |
England wanted a share, but was kept out by force. | 0:04:00 | 0:04:05 | |
For years, Elizabeth had fought back, | 0:04:07 | 0:04:09 | |
sending out her sailors to raid Spanish treasure ships. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:13 | |
Then relations between the two countries edged even closer to all-out conflict. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:22 | |
Here, in Flanders, the Spanish army was already fighting its own religious war. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:46 | |
30,000 troops were scattered throughout the region, | 0:04:46 | 0:04:49 | |
defending fortified towns like this one from the Protestant rebels. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:53 | |
To the fury of the Spanish, England sent troops to help the Dutch rebels. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:58 | |
To the Spanish king this was the final straw. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:06 | |
England was now taking Spanish gold, | 0:05:06 | 0:05:08 | |
insulting its religion and interfering with its wars. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:12 | |
Enough was enough. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:14 | |
It was time to sort out this irritating little country once and for all. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:19 | |
Philip's plan was to mount an ambitious combined operation | 0:05:21 | 0:05:25 | |
using his army in Flanders and the fleet he was assembling. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:29 | |
This massive armada would sail all the way from Spain | 0:05:29 | 0:05:33 | |
packed with soldiers and naval firepower. | 0:05:33 | 0:05:37 | |
Its task would be to sail right up the English Channel to its narrowest point here between Dover and Calais, | 0:05:37 | 0:05:43 | |
and there it would meet up with that Spanish army in Flanders | 0:05:43 | 0:05:48 | |
and escort it across to England. | 0:05:48 | 0:05:50 | |
Philip hoped that this combined force would be unstoppable. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:56 | |
This was to be a military operation on an unprecedented scale. | 0:05:56 | 0:06:00 | |
The Armada would have to carry over 20,000 men and their weapons and supplies 1,000 miles | 0:06:00 | 0:06:08 | |
and then launch an invasion. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:10 | |
Philip had to find the right man to lead the Armada, | 0:06:10 | 0:06:14 | |
but he chose a most unlikely candidate. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:17 | |
The man he picked was the Duke of Medina Sidonia. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:25 | |
From the little that's known, this is what he might have looked like. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:29 | |
He was one of the richest noblemen in Europe but he was not an experienced naval commander. | 0:06:29 | 0:06:35 | |
In fact, he had never fought at sea. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:37 | |
Even Medina Sidonia's own mother didn't think he was up to the job. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:43 | |
He did everything he could to get out of it. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
He even complained to the king he got seasick and caught colds at sea. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:51 | |
But Philip wouldn't hear of it. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:53 | |
To him, more important than experience was social standing, | 0:06:53 | 0:06:57 | |
and Medina Sidonia had plenty of that. | 0:06:57 | 0:07:00 | |
Anyone who doubted that Medina Sidonia was the right man was soon silenced. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:12 | |
In no time at all, every port in Spain was buzzing with activity. | 0:07:12 | 0:07:18 | |
People were galvanised into action by their new commander's efficient organisation. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:26 | |
In a few months, supplies were stockpiled, weapons were issued and crews assembled. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:34 | |
On board the ships, the men were blessed | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
to make sure that God would smile on this enterprise. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:42 | |
People were not allowed blasphemy or gambling on board. | 0:07:44 | 0:07:49 | |
We were all confessed and absolved before leaving. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
We were prepared for death, to fight for what was right. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
I was happy to do God's work, | 0:07:55 | 0:07:58 | |
to serve my country. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:00 | |
To the Spanish, this wasn't just an invasion force. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:05 | |
It was a religious crusade. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:07 | |
The Spanish Armada was now a reality. All that was needed was the order to sail to England. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:14 | |
Queen Elizabeth had got word from her spies that an attack was imminent. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:38 | |
She knew that England's only hope lay in her navy. | 0:08:38 | 0:08:43 | |
So in May 1588 she scraped together every ship she could find | 0:08:44 | 0:08:50 | |
and ordered the main force here to Plymouth. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:53 | |
Just as well. | 0:08:55 | 0:08:58 | |
Even as the ships were assembling, the Armada set sail from Spain. | 0:08:58 | 0:09:03 | |
The Spanish Armada was a breathtaking military force. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:12 | |
Medina Sidonia had gathered 130 ships. | 0:09:14 | 0:09:18 | |
The fleet carried 7,000 sailors and nearly three times as many soldiers. | 0:09:18 | 0:09:24 | |
Never before had the world seen such a concentration of naval power. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:34 | |
And it was heading straight for England. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
Along the southern coast of England, people waited nervously for the arrival of the Spanish invaders. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:58 | |
In the villages, men prepared to fight with any weapons they could lay their hands on. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:03 | |
In huts like this, and all along the Cornish coast, | 0:10:03 | 0:10:06 | |
lookouts stared out to sea, waiting for the first signs of the invasion fleet. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:11 | |
Then on Friday 29th of July, | 0:10:13 | 0:10:15 | |
the watchers spotted a forest of masts and sails looming on the horizon. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:21 | |
The Spanish Armada had reached the British coast. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:24 | |
The only thing that now blocked the path of the Armada were the ships of the Royal Navy. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:34 | |
And the man in charge, on his flagship Ark Royal, | 0:10:34 | 0:10:38 | |
was Admiral Lord Howard. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:40 | |
Lord Howard was a natural-born leader, | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
but like his counterpart Medina Sidonia, | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
he'd got the job more through family connections than through experience. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:54 | |
He was the Queen's cousin. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:56 | |
But the English were not exactly short on seamanship. Second in command was Sir Francis Drake. | 0:10:56 | 0:11:02 | |
Drake was very different from Howard. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:05 | |
Born the humble son of a farmer, | 0:11:05 | 0:11:08 | |
he had become the greatest sailor in England. | 0:11:08 | 0:11:12 | |
He was deeply feared by the Spanish | 0:11:12 | 0:11:15 | |
for his frequent raids on their ships and ports, | 0:11:15 | 0:11:19 | |
but his own men respected, even loved him. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:23 | |
One of the great things about Drake is all men are equal on his ship. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:27 | |
He's willing to put himself shoulder to shoulder with the next man, | 0:11:27 | 0:11:31 | |
to stand next to you and burn his hands on the rope. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
Sir Francis Drake, er, rightly... gets my respect, every bloody time. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:41 | |
The country's future now depended on these two commanders and the men they led. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:46 | |
They were eager to set out to sea to fight the Spanish, | 0:11:46 | 0:11:50 | |
but there was something that stood in their way. | 0:11:50 | 0:11:54 | |
When the Armada was spotted, | 0:11:59 | 0:12:01 | |
the wind was blowing inland and the tide was flooding in. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:06 | |
I'm in the middle of the narrowest point of Plymouth harbour at the moment, | 0:12:06 | 0:12:11 | |
straining away against about a 2- or 3-knot tide. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:14 | |
It must have been incredibly frustrating for them | 0:12:14 | 0:12:17 | |
knowing that just a few miles away at sea was the Spanish Armada | 0:12:17 | 0:12:21 | |
and they couldn't get to grips with them, because they were stuck here. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
There was nothing Drake or Howard could do | 0:12:31 | 0:12:34 | |
but calmly finish their famous game of bowls and wait for the tide to turn. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:40 | |
But their calm belied the danger of the situation. | 0:12:41 | 0:12:45 | |
The English ships were trapped while the enemy drew nearer. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:50 | |
The Spanish now had an extraordinary opportunity - to launch an attack on the English | 0:12:55 | 0:13:00 | |
while they were still vulnerable here in Plymouth harbour. | 0:13:00 | 0:13:04 | |
It might have won them a quick victory, and some Spanish officers argued fiercely for it. | 0:13:04 | 0:13:09 | |
But Philip's orders had been clear - | 0:13:09 | 0:13:12 | |
do not engage the enemy unless absolutely necessary. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:16 | |
The fleet's task was to keep heading for Calais to meet up with that Spanish army in the Netherlands. | 0:13:16 | 0:13:21 | |
So the Armada sailed on, | 0:13:21 | 0:13:24 | |
ignoring what might have been an opportunity to strike a decisive blow. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:30 | |
They weren't intent on causing damage while we were anchored. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:34 | |
Indeed they waited while the tides became more favourable to ourselves. | 0:13:34 | 0:13:38 | |
And that is something I shall never understand to this day, | 0:13:38 | 0:13:42 | |
other than being a man of faith, I suppose that God smiled on us that day. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:47 | |
It was only as the tide turned that evening that the English had their chance to take the initiative. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:54 | |
They headed out of Plymouth Sound here to face the enemy. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:59 | |
Here is the English coast, | 0:13:59 | 0:14:01 | |
from Plymouth right the way along into Cornwall. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:04 | |
The westerly wind was blowing the Armada, here, steadily eastwards. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:08 | |
Drake and Howard, coming out of Plymouth harbour here, | 0:14:08 | 0:14:13 | |
decided to split their forces. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:16 | |
Howard's plan was to take the main body of the fleet out to sea, | 0:14:16 | 0:14:20 | |
whilst Drake was to head westwards along the coast. | 0:14:20 | 0:14:24 | |
Their aim was to get to the west of the Spanish Armada. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:29 | |
This was critical because the wind was blowing from the west, | 0:14:30 | 0:14:34 | |
and if they could get round to this side, | 0:14:34 | 0:14:37 | |
then they would have the all-important advantage of having the wind behind them. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:43 | |
But to get to that position they had to sail into the wind, | 0:14:43 | 0:14:47 | |
and sailing into the wind was very tricky, and it still is. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:52 | |
Now the trouble about sailing into the wind - the wind's coming almost straight off my bow now - | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
is that you can't go straight at it. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:03 | |
If you do, the sail just flaps helplessly and you stop. | 0:15:03 | 0:15:06 | |
So, you go off the wind, each side of the wind, | 0:15:06 | 0:15:09 | |
and you zigzag, you tack, as it's called into the wind. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:13 | |
So here we go now, we're on one tack... | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
and to go up there into the wind, I've got to go through like this. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:20 | |
Imagine this in a great big square-rigged sailing ship - | 0:15:20 | 0:15:24 | |
it would take a long time to get the yards and sails around. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:28 | |
Sailing with the wind behind you is much easier. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:33 | |
There's two major advantages to going downwind. | 0:15:33 | 0:15:36 | |
It's pretty much the quickest way of sailing, you're going very fast, | 0:15:36 | 0:15:40 | |
and you've got a lot of control over the direction of the boat. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:44 | |
You can go that way, you can go that way, you can go any way you want. It's a very flexible way of sailing. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:50 | |
The advantage of having the wind behind you becomes clear in a race. | 0:15:50 | 0:15:55 | |
I'm heading into the wind. | 0:15:55 | 0:15:58 | |
Dan is sailing with the wind. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:01 | |
First to the buoy wins and I've got a head start. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:05 | |
Hooray, we're off! And the big race has begun. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:08 | |
I've the wind behind me so technically I can go straight from A to B. | 0:16:08 | 0:16:13 | |
I can head straight for the mark. Dad's got to zigzag the whole way. | 0:16:13 | 0:16:18 | |
Zigzagging to windward. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:20 | |
Come on, Dan, I'm going to beat you yet! | 0:16:20 | 0:16:24 | |
No, you won't, Dad. Even with that head start you can't beat me. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:28 | |
Well, I'm going to have to try another tack, that's all. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:32 | |
There you go. Zigzagging into the wind is a terrible way of having to race someone. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:38 | |
-And look at him - he's almost at the buoy already. ..All right, you win! -Ha-ha-ha! -Ha-ha(!) | 0:16:38 | 0:16:45 | |
Oh, dear. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:46 | |
It's clear the boat going downwind can go faster and straighter. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:50 | |
You zigzagging all around and going slowly, it wasn't fair. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:53 | |
The whole strategy of every battle at sea was to fight for the position on the windward side of your enemy. | 0:16:53 | 0:16:59 | |
That way you had what they call the weather gauge of it, you were actually able to control the battle. | 0:16:59 | 0:17:04 | |
Sailing into the wind is hard work, even on a modern sailboat. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:11 | |
On the huge square-rigged galleons of the time it required great skill and co-ordination. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:17 | |
But if the English were to gain that vital position, they would have to use their expertise | 0:17:19 | 0:17:26 | |
to tack westwards into the wind and slip past the Spanish fleet. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:30 | |
All the next day the Spanish continued heading east towards the meeting point with their army. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:43 | |
The lookouts strained to catch sight of the English fleet, | 0:17:43 | 0:17:47 | |
expecting them to appear somewhere in front of them. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
Then at dawn on Sunday 31st, two days after they'd arrived, | 0:17:50 | 0:17:54 | |
they finally spotted them, | 0:17:54 | 0:17:56 | |
but to their shock and amazement the English ships were now behind them, | 0:17:56 | 0:18:01 | |
and worse still, they were getting ready to attack. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:04 | |
The scene was now set for the first battle of the conflict. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:09 | |
The wind was blowing steadily from over here, from the west, | 0:18:18 | 0:18:22 | |
and the two squadrons of the English fleet | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
had zigzagged into the wind to get it behind them, giving them an advantage over the Spanish. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:31 | |
The English fleet numbered just 55 ships, including the 11 in Drake's squadron. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:37 | |
The Spanish fleet was more than twice that size, over 120 ships. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:45 | |
They'd now formed into a prearranged battle formation, | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
a huge crescent two miles across. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
At each haul of the crescent were two big fighting squadrons, | 0:18:51 | 0:18:56 | |
huge galleons, these, of up to 50 guns each. | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
In the centre, Medina Sidonia himself, | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
commanding more big fighting ships, | 0:19:02 | 0:19:05 | |
whilst all around them, the less well armed supply ships, protected within that close-packed crescent. | 0:19:05 | 0:19:12 | |
It was an effective defensive formation, | 0:19:12 | 0:19:15 | |
almost impossible to break up. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:17 | |
And the Armada had another advantage - | 0:19:17 | 0:19:21 | |
each vessel was loaded with soldiers, | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
as many as 350 on a single ship. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:26 | |
The Spanish fought in the age-old traditional way - | 0:19:26 | 0:19:30 | |
they took grappling hooks like this, then they hurled them across at enemy ships, | 0:19:30 | 0:19:35 | |
dragged the ships together and then would leap across and fight it out hand-to-hand on the enemy decks. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:40 | |
In this kind of fighting the Spanish had a massive advantage - their huge ships bristling with soldiers. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:45 | |
The English, with their smaller ships and smaller crews, liked to keep their distance, | 0:19:45 | 0:19:51 | |
and instead battered their enemy into submission with their guns. | 0:19:51 | 0:19:55 | |
The two sides weren't only using different tactics, | 0:19:55 | 0:19:59 | |
they also sailed in very different formations. | 0:19:59 | 0:20:02 | |
This is like the Armada would have been - | 0:20:07 | 0:20:10 | |
tightly packed, difficult for the British to get in and fire broadsides - | 0:20:10 | 0:20:14 | |
but equally very difficult for US to fire broadsides because we only shoot each other up. | 0:20:14 | 0:20:20 | |
Also not very manoeuvrable, because if I turn or they turn | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
we'll hit each other, and a lot of collision went on inside the Armada. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:27 | |
The English had to be manoeuvrable to keep clear of the Spanish grappling hooks, | 0:20:27 | 0:20:32 | |
so they tried something new. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
They went in line astern, one after the other, so the leader could control where everybody went. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:40 | |
It also meant that the guns, which are all down the sides of the ships, | 0:20:46 | 0:20:50 | |
could all fire at once against the Spanish, much more effective. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:54 | |
The English hoped that their line formation would enable them to run rings around the Armada, | 0:21:01 | 0:21:08 | |
whilst the Spanish hoped that their defensive formation | 0:21:08 | 0:21:12 | |
would enable them to withstand any attacks. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:15 | |
The English commanders were about to find out if their new battle plan would outwit the Spanish. | 0:21:20 | 0:21:27 | |
Now with the wind behind them, the English could put this new strategy into action | 0:21:31 | 0:21:36 | |
in a ferocious two-pronged attack on the Armada. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
Howard now swung around, | 0:21:39 | 0:21:41 | |
aiming to attack the southern haul of the crescent | 0:21:41 | 0:21:44 | |
using the English line astern formation. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:48 | |
Meanwhile Drake was going to concentrate his attack on the northern tip. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:53 | |
The two commanders knew the fate of England was in their hands. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:58 | |
As each ship turned to face the Armada, | 0:22:01 | 0:22:04 | |
the English sailors hoisted up every sail they could | 0:22:04 | 0:22:07 | |
and used the favourable wind to carry them headlong into battle. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:12 | |
Heave! Heave! Heave! | 0:22:12 | 0:22:16 | |
As they approached the giant Spanish ships for the first time, | 0:22:44 | 0:22:48 | |
they realised just how powerful their adversary was. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:52 | |
MEN SHOUT | 0:22:55 | 0:22:59 | |
But this was an enemy they had to defeat or England would fall. | 0:23:03 | 0:23:09 | |
Below decks the gunners loaded the cannons ready for firing. | 0:23:13 | 0:23:17 | |
At last the Armada was just a quarter of a mile away. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:28 | |
The Ark Royal was leading the attack | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
and the Spanish ships were now within range of its cannons. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:35 | |
The order was given to fire. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:38 | |
Down here on the cramped gun decks the noise would have been unbelievable. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:06 | |
The well-trained English fired broadside after broadside, | 0:24:09 | 0:24:13 | |
firing and reloading continuously. | 0:24:13 | 0:24:15 | |
No amount of preparation prepares you for the noise and the sweat | 0:24:19 | 0:24:24 | |
and the fear and the sound. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:28 | |
You're more an animal than a man, | 0:24:34 | 0:24:37 | |
you just keep going, you keep going... | 0:24:37 | 0:24:41 | |
until someone tells you to stop. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:43 | |
Following one after another, the English were able to outmanoeuvre the Spanish | 0:24:45 | 0:24:51 | |
and bring their guns to bear on the ships of the Armada. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:55 | |
And all the while, | 0:24:59 | 0:25:01 | |
the English kept their distance to avoid being boarded. | 0:25:01 | 0:25:05 | |
Their strategy was working. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:08 | |
For the Spanish this was a major blow. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:19 | |
They couldn't get close enough to use their grappling hooks, | 0:25:19 | 0:25:23 | |
and whilst most of the Spanish ships were protected by their tight formation, | 0:25:23 | 0:25:28 | |
the ships at the tip were on the receiving end | 0:25:28 | 0:25:32 | |
of wave upon wave of English cannon fire. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:35 | |
What was amazing was the... | 0:25:35 | 0:25:38 | |
..the skill of the English, the...agility of the boats. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:43 | |
We had never encountered anything like that before. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:47 | |
Finally the English pulled back, | 0:25:49 | 0:25:52 | |
triumphant that not a single one of their ships had been boarded. | 0:25:52 | 0:25:57 | |
But despite firing over 2,000 cannonballs, | 0:25:57 | 0:26:00 | |
they failed to sink a single Spanish ship. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:03 | |
We'd as yet been unable to cause any real damage to the Spanish Armada ourselves. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:14 | |
We HAD hit them, of course, but not hard enough. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:18 | |
The Armada was still intact and as powerful as ever. | 0:26:21 | 0:26:26 | |
The English had done nothing that day to dent the invasion plan. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:33 | |
For some reason the English cannons simply weren't doing enough damage. | 0:26:34 | 0:26:40 | |
Right, let's load this thing. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:08 | |
OK, here's the charge... nice and gently. | 0:27:08 | 0:27:13 | |
-I'm going to ram it down. -How long would this take on a ship? | 0:27:13 | 0:27:16 | |
They could do it pretty quickly with a trained crew. | 0:27:16 | 0:27:20 | |
-I think you'd get a round away in a minute. -About a round a minute? -Yeah. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:24 | |
Then the next thing to go in would be the shot. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:27 | |
-Weighs about 3lb? -3lb of cast iron. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:30 | |
And they went up to, oh, ten times that size. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:35 | |
-There she goes. -There it is. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:37 | |
To stop it falling out we put in the top wad, which on a ship would be old rope. Here we're going to use straw. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:43 | |
-Because when the ship rolls, we don't want the ball... -The shot falling out, it keeps it in. | 0:27:43 | 0:27:49 | |
You give that a good tap home. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:50 | |
Get ready for priming. I'm pricking a little hole in the cartridge inside. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:55 | |
That releases the powder so that when you light it, the powder goes off and the ball spurts out the end? | 0:27:55 | 0:28:00 | |
-That right. -There you go - physics. -But the gun hasn't yet been aimed. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:04 | |
Right, OK, let's go left a bit... | 0:28:04 | 0:28:07 | |
ah, a little more... | 0:28:07 | 0:28:09 | |
Too much, back a tiny shade... yeah, that's it, that's spot-on. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:13 | |
'For safety, we went to set the cannon off remotely from a very reinforced bunker.' | 0:28:13 | 0:28:18 | |
See the thickness of the roof which we'll be under? | 0:28:18 | 0:28:22 | |
Right, now, I'm going to take money on this hitting the very, very centre of the target. | 0:28:22 | 0:28:28 | |
I'll offer you 5-1 on. How about that? | 0:28:28 | 0:28:31 | |
No, I'm not a betting man, but I think you're going to hit it. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
Five, four, | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
three, two, | 0:28:37 | 0:28:39 | |
one, fire. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:42 | |
-Whoa! Nice! Straight through. -We hit it. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:49 | |
-We aimed well, Dan. -Yeah, well done, Dad. | 0:28:49 | 0:28:52 | |
-Let's go and have a look. -Good. | 0:28:52 | 0:28:55 | |
If we can manage this here, why didn't the English do more damage? | 0:29:02 | 0:29:07 | |
You can make a 3-inch-diameter hole in the side of a ship | 0:29:07 | 0:29:10 | |
but that won't sink a ship because it's easily fixable. It'll cause casualties and may disable it, | 0:29:10 | 0:29:16 | |
but to actually sink a ship you have to pepper the side of the boat. | 0:29:16 | 0:29:20 | |
-The Spanish running around with a big plug, shoving it in... -Taking casualties but plugging the holes. | 0:29:20 | 0:29:26 | |
And ships not sinking, even though peppered with holes like this. | 0:29:26 | 0:29:30 | |
No. We imagine shells that rip the side out of a ship, but all that's doing is making a little hole. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:36 | |
On that first day of battle the English sailors kept their distance. | 0:29:39 | 0:29:44 | |
But that meant only the occasional cannonball hit its mark, | 0:29:44 | 0:29:49 | |
and so at the end of that day | 0:29:49 | 0:29:52 | |
the Armada sailed on virtually unscathed. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:56 | |
After seven hours of fighting, neither side had done decisive damage to the other. | 0:29:58 | 0:30:03 | |
The worst damage the Spanish suffered, they'd done themselves. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:07 | |
In the chaos of battle, two of their ships had collided. | 0:30:07 | 0:30:11 | |
Rather than break up its formation, the Armada continued towards its ultimate goal. | 0:30:14 | 0:30:21 | |
One of the disabled ships was left behind. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:24 | |
At night, Drake was charged with following the Spanish ships | 0:30:25 | 0:30:30 | |
with his lantern lit to guide the fleet. | 0:30:30 | 0:30:32 | |
But then he did something quite outrageous. | 0:30:32 | 0:30:35 | |
He couldn't resist the lure of Spanish treasure. | 0:30:35 | 0:30:39 | |
So he snuffed out the lantern | 0:30:39 | 0:30:41 | |
and slipped off to loot the crippled ship. | 0:30:41 | 0:30:45 | |
And that was something to be proud of. | 0:30:45 | 0:30:48 | |
We kept a ship from the Spanish | 0:30:48 | 0:30:50 | |
and it was laden with gold, let me tell you. | 0:30:50 | 0:30:54 | |
It was a profitable night for Drake, but the rest of the English fleet paid a heavy price. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:59 | |
Without his lantern to guide them, they got scattered, and by dawn they were in complete disarray. | 0:30:59 | 0:31:05 | |
It took them a day to re-form | 0:31:05 | 0:31:08 | |
and the Armada continued its relentless voyage eastwards. | 0:31:08 | 0:31:13 | |
The English had to catch up with the Spanish or else all was lost. | 0:31:15 | 0:31:20 | |
Fortunately they had something that would help them - | 0:31:20 | 0:31:25 | |
the design of their ships. | 0:31:25 | 0:31:28 | |
It's the shape of a ship that determines how effective it is at sailing - | 0:31:28 | 0:31:32 | |
the sleeker the vessel, the more manoeuvrable it is. | 0:31:32 | 0:31:36 | |
Spanish ships were built very high out of the water. They were very top-heavy and cumbersome. | 0:31:42 | 0:31:48 | |
They were ready to take lots of men and supplies - floating fortresses. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:52 | |
The English ships were faster, more manoeuvrable. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
They'd taken the traditional galleon design and made it sleeker. | 0:31:55 | 0:31:58 | |
With their faster ships, the English set off in pursuit of the Armada, | 0:32:02 | 0:32:07 | |
and after a day of hard sailing, they caught up with them. | 0:32:07 | 0:32:11 | |
It was now Tuesday 2nd August, five days after the Armada had arrived. | 0:32:15 | 0:32:20 | |
Medina Sidonia had led his ships as far as this - Portland Bill in Dorset. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:26 | |
People watching here would have seen the ships clearly out to sea there. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:30 | |
This was the scene of a second fierce battle. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
Once again the Spanish formation held firm. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:48 | |
Once again the English failed to make any impact. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:52 | |
I do remember at that time feeling frustrated and somewhat concerned, | 0:32:55 | 0:32:59 | |
because we had done our damnedest to get in there and have a go | 0:32:59 | 0:33:03 | |
but still that bloody armada kept sailing on. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:06 | |
Hardly troubled it, it appeared. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:09 | |
But in fact Medina Sidonia was very concerned. | 0:33:09 | 0:33:12 | |
He'd been expecting to get word from the Spanish troops in Flanders | 0:33:12 | 0:33:16 | |
to confirm that they were prepared for the invasion, | 0:33:16 | 0:33:21 | |
but he'd heard nothing. He was now at a critical point in the voyage. | 0:33:21 | 0:33:25 | |
He was approaching the Isle of Wight | 0:33:25 | 0:33:27 | |
and he still didn't know whether the army in Flanders was ready. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:31 | |
It's a quirk of English geography that there are many big harbours west of the Isle of Wight | 0:33:31 | 0:33:37 | |
but none at all beyond it to the east on this stretch of coast. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:41 | |
So once past this point, there was no place for the Armada to shelter, | 0:33:41 | 0:33:45 | |
not even in Flanders itself. | 0:33:45 | 0:33:47 | |
If the Spanish sailed on, | 0:33:47 | 0:33:49 | |
they'd be taking a gamble that the army was all set to go. | 0:33:49 | 0:33:54 | |
Medina Sidonia's safest option | 0:33:56 | 0:33:59 | |
was to occupy the Isle of Wight and make it a temporary base. | 0:33:59 | 0:34:03 | |
This would be an easy task for his troops, | 0:34:07 | 0:34:11 | |
and he could then wait there, safe in the shelter in the Solent, | 0:34:11 | 0:34:15 | |
until he got word that the army was ready. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:18 | |
The English knew they had to stop the Spanish from getting into the Solent at all costs, | 0:34:25 | 0:34:31 | |
but that day, unlike today, there was another problem - there was no wind at all. | 0:34:31 | 0:34:36 | |
The English didn't let that deter them. | 0:34:36 | 0:34:38 | |
They put small boats like this into the water and dragged their big galleons into battle. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:44 | |
Go for it, Dan, come on, heave-ho! | 0:34:44 | 0:34:47 | |
That's it, you're pulling us along. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:49 | |
-I'm not sure I'm going too fast here. -She's moving. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:54 | |
I can see why the rowers are on a high carbohydrate diet. I feel like the need for a doughnut. | 0:34:54 | 0:35:00 | |
-I don't want to break it to you, but I think we're going slightly backwards. -I know. | 0:35:00 | 0:35:06 | |
Later that morning, the wind at last picked up. | 0:35:07 | 0:35:11 | |
Now the real battle could commence. | 0:35:11 | 0:35:14 | |
The two fleets were here, just south of the Isle of Wight. | 0:35:14 | 0:35:18 | |
The Armada seemed to be heading for the sheltered waters just around the corner in the Solent, here, | 0:35:18 | 0:35:24 | |
where they could seize the Isle of Wight. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
The English had just hours in which to stop them. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:31 | |
Howard and Drake had decided | 0:35:32 | 0:35:34 | |
to split the English fleet into four separate squadrons | 0:35:34 | 0:35:38 | |
to give them maximum freedom to fight independently. | 0:35:38 | 0:35:42 | |
Drake took his squadron south. | 0:35:42 | 0:35:44 | |
Another squadron attacked the Armada from the north. | 0:35:44 | 0:35:48 | |
But this attack did little damage to the Spanish. | 0:35:50 | 0:35:53 | |
The two remaining squadrons then joined the fierce melee heading for the centre of the Spanish crescent. | 0:35:53 | 0:36:00 | |
But through the dense gun smoke the English could see the Armada | 0:36:02 | 0:36:07 | |
drifting ever closer to the vulnerable entrance to the Solent. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:12 | |
The campaign was now to take a decisive turn. | 0:36:12 | 0:36:15 | |
Drake made a brilliant move. | 0:36:15 | 0:36:17 | |
He'd already led his ships out to sea. | 0:36:17 | 0:36:20 | |
He now appeared from the open sea | 0:36:20 | 0:36:22 | |
and brought his firepower to bear | 0:36:22 | 0:36:25 | |
on the ships of the southern tip of the Spanish formation. | 0:36:25 | 0:36:29 | |
Medina Sidonia saw this and sent reinforcements southwards to their defence. | 0:36:29 | 0:36:34 | |
Drake had distracted the Spanish commander at the critical moment. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:40 | |
Instead of turning into the sheltered waters of the Solent, the Spanish Armada found itself heading | 0:36:44 | 0:36:51 | |
for one of the most treacherous hazards of the English Channel - | 0:36:51 | 0:36:55 | |
the dreaded sandbanks of the Owers. | 0:36:55 | 0:36:58 | |
English sailors had left the Armada with no choice. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:03 | |
To avoid running aground on the Owers, | 0:37:05 | 0:37:07 | |
the Spanish had to turn away from the Isle of Wight into the open sea. | 0:37:07 | 0:37:11 | |
For the time being, the Spanish had been prevented from setting foot on British soil. | 0:37:13 | 0:37:20 | |
For Medina Sidonia the die was now cast. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:23 | |
For better or worse, the Armada was set on a one-way course towards Flanders to meet up with the army. | 0:37:23 | 0:37:31 | |
It all went according to the Spanish plan. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:34 | |
They could still launch a joint invasion in a matter of days. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:39 | |
Here in Flanders the army of Spain was still fighting Dutch Protestant rebels. | 0:37:56 | 0:38:01 | |
They were ready to break off their land war and gather together for the invasion of England | 0:38:01 | 0:38:07 | |
as soon as they heard that the Armada was getting close. | 0:38:07 | 0:38:11 | |
But they would need at least a week to complete their preparations, | 0:38:11 | 0:38:15 | |
so it was vital that they got advanced warning of the Armada's arrival. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:20 | |
In fact, Medina Sidonia had been desperately trying to get a message to the army | 0:38:30 | 0:38:36 | |
ever since he arrived off Cornwall eight days earlier. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:39 | |
But communication at sea was very unreliable. | 0:38:39 | 0:38:43 | |
He had no idea whether his messages had actually got through. | 0:38:44 | 0:38:49 | |
On Saturday 6th of August, | 0:38:49 | 0:38:51 | |
the Armada was finally nearing its destination. | 0:38:51 | 0:38:54 | |
Despite all the best efforts of Drake and Howard, it had sailed the entire length of the English Channel | 0:38:54 | 0:39:00 | |
without losing a single ship to those English guns, | 0:39:00 | 0:39:04 | |
and now it was in the Straits of Dover, the narrowest part of the Channel, | 0:39:04 | 0:39:09 | |
and within 25 miles of that Spanish army in Flanders. | 0:39:09 | 0:39:13 | |
Medina Sidonia was still hoping | 0:39:13 | 0:39:16 | |
that the 30,000 Spanish troops would be ready and waiting on the coast. | 0:39:16 | 0:39:21 | |
But they were nowhere near ready. | 0:39:25 | 0:39:27 | |
In fact, word had only just reached the troops of the Armada's progress. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:33 | |
They started gathering as fast as they could, | 0:39:33 | 0:39:36 | |
but the preparations would still take days. | 0:39:36 | 0:39:40 | |
This was disastrous news for Medina Sidonia. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:43 | |
It would mean the Armada waiting around in the open sea at the mercy of the elements and the English. | 0:39:43 | 0:39:50 | |
It was a naval commander's worst nightmare. | 0:39:50 | 0:39:53 | |
But from the point of view of the English sailors, the situation looked equally desperate. | 0:39:53 | 0:40:00 | |
For all they knew, the Armada was about to be joined by the troops | 0:40:00 | 0:40:04 | |
for the final assault on England. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:06 | |
We were all completely and utterly exhausted. | 0:40:06 | 0:40:10 | |
We'd all been awake for near enough a week, | 0:40:10 | 0:40:14 | |
with hard sailing and fighting on a daily basis, | 0:40:14 | 0:40:19 | |
and now the Armada had reached its destination, | 0:40:19 | 0:40:23 | |
and it seemed we had but hours to achieve... | 0:40:23 | 0:40:27 | |
what we hadn't been able to achieve in a week. | 0:40:27 | 0:40:32 | |
It was their last chance to destroy the Spanish fleet. | 0:40:32 | 0:40:36 | |
So far the Armada's tight formation had proved immune to attack | 0:40:36 | 0:40:40 | |
and somehow the English had to find a way to break it up. | 0:40:40 | 0:40:44 | |
So on Sunday 7th of August, | 0:40:44 | 0:40:47 | |
Drake and Howard met to plan their attack. | 0:40:47 | 0:40:50 | |
And they decided to use a weapon that struck fear into every sailor on a wooden ship - | 0:40:50 | 0:40:57 | |
fire. | 0:40:57 | 0:40:58 | |
On the night of August 7th, | 0:41:06 | 0:41:09 | |
English sailors prepared eight full-sized ships for sacrifice. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:13 | |
They loaded them with barrels of tar. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:16 | |
They even put two cannonballs in each cannon | 0:41:16 | 0:41:19 | |
so that when the flames reached the powder they would explode at random. | 0:41:19 | 0:41:23 | |
The moon was full that night, which meant the tide would run strong. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
At midnight, the English sailors set the ships alight | 0:41:28 | 0:41:32 | |
and let the wind and tide carry them right into the middle of the Spanish fleet. | 0:41:32 | 0:41:37 | |
As the fire ships drifted towards the Armada, the Spanish raised the alarm. | 0:41:40 | 0:41:45 | |
It was like a storm of fire coming towards us. You could feel the heat and it was coming closer and closer. | 0:42:02 | 0:42:08 | |
The terrified soldiers desperately tried to haul the burning boats out of the way. | 0:42:11 | 0:42:17 | |
We would...clear one boat... | 0:42:17 | 0:42:20 | |
divert it away from the Armada, and another would follow. | 0:42:20 | 0:42:24 | |
We would clear that and another would follow and we'd clear that one, | 0:42:24 | 0:42:28 | |
and another would follow and another behind that. It was relentless. | 0:42:28 | 0:42:31 | |
Most of the ships simply cut their cables and abandoned their anchors in the mad rush to escape. | 0:42:39 | 0:42:45 | |
In the confusion the Spanish ships were scattered far and wide. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:49 | |
There were several collisions and one even ended up grounded. | 0:42:49 | 0:42:53 | |
Even though not a single Spanish ship actually caught on fire, | 0:42:53 | 0:42:57 | |
the fear was enough to achieve the required objective. | 0:42:57 | 0:43:00 | |
By the morning, the Spanish Armada was in disarray. | 0:43:00 | 0:43:04 | |
At last the Spanish formation was broken, | 0:43:07 | 0:43:10 | |
its ships spread along the coast of Gravelines, north of Calais, | 0:43:10 | 0:43:15 | |
an area of treacherous sandbanks and shallow waters. | 0:43:15 | 0:43:20 | |
The Spanish were now in a perilous position. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:23 | |
Their armada was scattered | 0:43:23 | 0:43:25 | |
and it was the ideal time for the English to strike. | 0:43:25 | 0:43:29 | |
But Drake suddenly discovered that Howard and more than 20 English ships had completely disappeared. | 0:43:29 | 0:43:36 | |
Incredibly, at this critical moment, | 0:43:36 | 0:43:38 | |
Howard had shown that he too had a deep piratical streak | 0:43:38 | 0:43:43 | |
and they'd gone off to loot a Spanish ship that had gone aground. | 0:43:43 | 0:43:47 | |
Once again, the greed of the English cost them valuable time. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:55 | |
While Howard chased after Spanish booty, Drake led the rest of the English fleet | 0:43:55 | 0:44:01 | |
into a conflict unlike any that had been fought before, the Battle of Gravelines. | 0:44:01 | 0:44:08 | |
What followed was a frantic struggle which both sides knew would decide the fate of the Armada. | 0:44:08 | 0:44:15 | |
The Armada had been scattered by the fire ships and was spread out along the coast, | 0:44:15 | 0:44:20 | |
only Medina Sidonia's flagship and four others | 0:44:20 | 0:44:24 | |
had managed to stand their ground here. | 0:44:24 | 0:44:28 | |
They bore the brunt of Drake's first attack. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
For over an hour, Medina Sidonia held back the English onslaught, | 0:44:44 | 0:44:49 | |
giving the rest of the Armada time to reform. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:52 | |
Finally, Howard returned from his private looting expedition and joined in the attack, | 0:44:57 | 0:45:03 | |
but, by now, 50 of the Spanish ships had formed their own defensive crescent | 0:45:03 | 0:45:09 | |
and Drake sailed on to attack it, realising this main body of Spanish ships had to be broken. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:16 | |
Drake decided to take an enormous risk - he led his ships much closer than in any of the previous battles. | 0:45:18 | 0:45:25 | |
Soon, they were in amongst the ships of the Armada. | 0:45:25 | 0:45:29 | |
The experience for those on board would have been different from the other battles. | 0:46:03 | 0:46:08 | |
The ships were so close either side could fire muskets and even hurl abuse at each other. | 0:46:08 | 0:46:14 | |
One English ship came so close to a Spanish ship, an English sailor jumped aboard, but was killed. | 0:46:14 | 0:46:21 | |
We were so close we could hear the Spanish talking, and then we knew we were in musket range. | 0:46:29 | 0:46:35 | |
But, by getting near, the English were at last able to hit the Armada | 0:46:45 | 0:46:50 | |
with shot after shot, doing terrible damage to the ships and their crews. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:55 | |
The Spanish were suffering huge numbers of casualties as the English ships pounded them from close range. | 0:46:58 | 0:47:05 | |
Below decks on the Spanish ships, cannonballs smashed through the hull meaning death for anyone in the way, | 0:47:10 | 0:47:16 | |
and sending splinters the size of daggers flying through the air. | 0:47:16 | 0:47:20 | |
The deck just ran red with blood, | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
every...every moment | 0:47:42 | 0:47:45 | |
it seemed that someone was crying with pain, | 0:47:45 | 0:47:50 | |
screaming with agony. | 0:47:50 | 0:47:53 | |
Whilst the English were blasting away, the Spanish guns were only managing to fire about once an hour, | 0:47:57 | 0:48:03 | |
but what slowed them down was lack of experience. | 0:48:03 | 0:48:07 | |
These guns are complicated to fire and the Spanish ships had more priests on board than gunners. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:16 | |
Instead, it was the job of the soldiers to fire the guns, but they had no experience fighting at sea. | 0:48:16 | 0:48:22 | |
So, for most of the battle, the Spanish couldn't even fight back. | 0:48:22 | 0:48:26 | |
It was...horrific | 0:48:28 | 0:48:30 | |
and... | 0:48:30 | 0:48:33 | |
I remember praying to God | 0:48:33 | 0:48:35 | |
and thinking that would be my last moment. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:39 | |
After eight hours of fighting, the English were running out ammunition. | 0:49:25 | 0:49:31 | |
We'd fired so much and done so much damage | 0:49:34 | 0:49:38 | |
that, by the end of the battle, we were grabbing anything - using chain instead of cannonballs, | 0:49:38 | 0:49:44 | |
loading anything we could get our hands on. | 0:49:44 | 0:49:47 | |
Around four in the afternoon, the English fired their last shots | 0:49:55 | 0:50:00 | |
and were forced to pull back, hoping they'd inflicted fatal damage on the Spanish. | 0:50:00 | 0:50:05 | |
The Spanish fleet was in tatters. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:17 | |
Over 600 Spanish were dead, many hundreds more were badly wounded. | 0:50:17 | 0:50:23 | |
One Spanish ship had been sunk, two driven ashore and the rest severely damaged. | 0:50:23 | 0:50:29 | |
And now the wind was blowing them helplessly towards the treacherous sandbanks of Flanders. | 0:50:29 | 0:50:35 | |
With the English fleet hovering out to sea and the wind pushing the Armada onto the sandbanks, | 0:50:41 | 0:50:47 | |
there was a hush on the ships and everyone's attention was on one man. | 0:50:47 | 0:50:52 | |
He was in charge of throwing a line into the water to measure the depth. | 0:50:52 | 0:50:56 | |
If the ships went aground, it would be certain death, either by drowning | 0:50:59 | 0:51:04 | |
as the ship broke up in the surf or at the hands of the English. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:08 | |
As the sandbanks drew nearer, the depths got more threatening. | 0:51:08 | 0:51:12 | |
60 feet, 50 feet | 0:51:12 | 0:51:15 | |
and then 40 feet. The biggest Armada ships needed about 30 feet of water. Destruction was moments away. | 0:51:15 | 0:51:23 | |
On board ship, the priests took final confessions. | 0:51:29 | 0:51:33 | |
Most of the sailors couldn't even swim. Death seemed inevitable. | 0:51:33 | 0:51:38 | |
Just as the ships were on the point of being wrecked, the wind changed - it came round to the south west | 0:51:41 | 0:51:47 | |
and blew the Armada out into the North Sea. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:50 | |
They believed they'd been saved by the will of God. | 0:51:50 | 0:51:53 | |
The wind may have saved the Spanish from the sandbanks, | 0:52:00 | 0:52:03 | |
but it drove them away from their army. | 0:52:03 | 0:52:06 | |
Philip's plan to conquer England and return it to the Catholic fold had failed. | 0:52:06 | 0:52:11 | |
For the Royal Navy, it was an astonishing achievement. | 0:52:14 | 0:52:17 | |
Drake and Howard had taken on the most powerful nation on Earth and won. | 0:52:19 | 0:52:24 | |
But for the Spanish, the story was to take a final devastating turn. | 0:52:26 | 0:52:31 | |
The Spanish sailors now had only one aim - to get home. | 0:52:36 | 0:52:42 | |
The English were blocking the Channel, so the Armada's only route home was round Scotland and Ireland, | 0:52:42 | 0:52:48 | |
and circling back to Spain. It was a long and arduous journey. | 0:52:48 | 0:52:53 | |
Soon supplies were running low. | 0:52:53 | 0:52:55 | |
By the time the fleet arrived off Ireland, men were dying from hunger and thirst. | 0:52:55 | 0:53:01 | |
Conditions on board must have been horrific. | 0:53:01 | 0:53:04 | |
You would hear moaning, people dying around you all the time, | 0:53:04 | 0:53:08 | |
the stink of sweat, of death - there was a smell of death in the air. | 0:53:08 | 0:53:13 | |
Some of the ships, | 0:53:13 | 0:53:16 | |
one in particular, had no water, no food - nothing. | 0:53:16 | 0:53:19 | |
It was a terrible disaster. | 0:53:21 | 0:53:23 | |
It was the weather that dealt the final blow to the Armada. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:41 | |
Many of the surviving ships were caught by fierce storms | 0:53:41 | 0:53:45 | |
as they crawled down the west coast of Ireland. | 0:53:45 | 0:53:48 | |
The broken ships and weakened men were no match for the elements - | 0:53:50 | 0:53:55 | |
they were too poorly equipped to cope. | 0:53:55 | 0:53:58 | |
Dozens of ships were wrecked, thousands of sailors were drowned and, of those who did get ashore, | 0:54:01 | 0:54:09 | |
many were robbed by the locals, and the rest were captured, and then butchered by English soldiers. | 0:54:09 | 0:54:15 | |
Only the nobles were spared, kept prisoner until they could be sold back to Spain. | 0:54:22 | 0:54:29 | |
Everything I once owned is gone. | 0:54:30 | 0:54:33 | |
I...I look at myself now... I look around this room and I feel I have lost everything. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:45 | |
Only a third of the men came back alive. | 0:54:55 | 0:54:59 | |
Medina Sidonia himself almost died of dysentery, | 0:54:59 | 0:55:03 | |
his second-in-command died of shame only days after he arrived home. | 0:55:03 | 0:55:08 | |
The Armada was worse than a failure - it was a national tragedy. | 0:55:08 | 0:55:14 | |
The English sailors fared little better. | 0:55:24 | 0:55:28 | |
They'd risked everything, fighting heroically for England and suffering less than 100 deaths. | 0:55:30 | 0:55:37 | |
But now that they'd served their purpose, the English Crown seemed to lose interest in them. | 0:55:40 | 0:55:46 | |
Instead of being rewarded as England's saviours, they were kept on board where disease spread fast. | 0:55:46 | 0:55:54 | |
Officially, they were there in case the Spanish returned, | 0:55:54 | 0:55:58 | |
but many suspected it was so they didn't have to be paid. | 0:55:58 | 0:56:02 | |
Weakened by hunger and illness, the English sailors were dying by the day. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:08 | |
I heard that the Lord Chancellor is happy for us to die, | 0:56:08 | 0:56:13 | |
because the more of us die, the less he'll have to pay. | 0:56:13 | 0:56:17 | |
I've been willing to give my life | 0:56:17 | 0:56:22 | |
and now I'm told that my life is worth little or next to nothing. | 0:56:22 | 0:56:27 | |
The men's commanders, Drake and Howard, did what they could - | 0:56:28 | 0:56:33 | |
Howard even pawned his silver, but it wasn't enough. | 0:56:33 | 0:56:36 | |
It is said that, of the men who fought the Spanish Armada, only half were alive a year later. | 0:56:36 | 0:56:43 | |
It was a tragic end for the men of the Royal Navy, | 0:56:45 | 0:56:48 | |
but, for England, the defeat of the Armada was a turning point, | 0:56:48 | 0:56:53 | |
a triumph that will become legendary. | 0:56:53 | 0:56:58 | |
England had defended its faith, and to this day Britain remains a Protestant state. | 0:56:58 | 0:57:05 | |
The coming centuries would see Spain decline and Britain taking a turn as Europe's leading power. | 0:57:05 | 0:57:12 | |
The Royal Navy would play a central role | 0:57:12 | 0:57:15 | |
in winning Britain an empire greater than any the world had ever seen, | 0:57:15 | 0:57:20 | |
and it all began with the defeat of the Spanish Armada. | 0:57:20 | 0:57:25 | |
In the next programme, 350 years ago, | 0:57:42 | 0:57:45 | |
a battle was fought that would shake the British monarchy to its core. | 0:57:45 | 0:57:50 | |
It was a turning point in a civil war | 0:57:50 | 0:57:52 | |
that had ripped the country apart for three years. | 0:57:52 | 0:57:56 | |
The battle is seen by many as the birthplace of British democracy, | 0:57:56 | 0:58:00 | |
but it was a birth that was drenched in blood - | 0:58:00 | 0:58:03 | |
blood shed on the battlefield of Naseby. | 0:58:03 | 0:58:06 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:09 | 0:58:12 |