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A
Want to walk the halls of Anne Boleyn's childhood home? Or explore the castles that made up Henry VIII's English stronghold? With a subscription to History Hit, you can dive into our Tudor past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe. Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samurais, relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors leaders. On 22 July 1588, under the command of Don Alonso Perez de Gutheman, Duke of Medina Sidonia, and after months of delay, the 130 Ships of the Great Armada left Spain. By dawn on 30 July, they were level with Falmouth and then struck sail while rapid intelligence was gathered about the size and readiness of the English fleet. This was Medina Sidonia's first error. The Armada was spotted and Admiral Howard of Effingham, commanding the English fleet, took most of his ships around the Armada's seaward flank, gaining the tactical advantage of the weather gauge, the winds, always a precondition of victory in the age of sail. The next morning, Howard launched his attack. It lasted two hours, but despite it and bar one or two skirmishes, the Armada continued unopposed on their voyage to pick up The Duke of Parma's army of 30,000 men in the Netherlands and transport them to England. But then came the second problem. They anchored near Calais, awaiting word from Parma that his troops were ready. But Palmer was seriously delayed and as they waited, sitting ducks, on the 7th of August, the English sent in eight fire ships, warships packed full of gunpowder and set alight to scatter the Spanish fleet. Many cut their cables, losing their primary anchors. They just about managed to regroup to confront the naval force of England in the Battle of Gravel. Withstanding the onslaught for nine hours and resisting being forced into the shoals. The but they sustained heavy damage and when the wind shifted West Southwest on 9 August, Medina Sidonia and his council took the decision to obey the weather and sail in the direction dictated by the wind, that is northwards, away from the English, away from the shoals, but also away from Parma's waiting army. So on 10 August, the armada, now reduced to 110 vessels, set off north to head back to Spain via the North Sea, sailing around Scotland. On the 18th of August, they turned west to sail through the Fair Isle Channel into the Atlantic. Their plan was to head past the west coast of Ireland and home. So when Elizabeth I gave her famous speech at Tilbury, I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but the heart and stomach of a king. The threat to the English had actually passed. But for the Spanish, it was then that the third and most devastating set of troubles began. I'm delighted to welcome my guest, Michael B Barry, author of 1588 the Spanish Armada and the 24 Ships Lost on Island Shores to discuss what happened next. This is the part of the story of about the Armada that we don't tell until now. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and you're listening to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit. Michael Barry, welcome to the podcast.
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B
Thank you very much. Delighted to be with you.
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A
I'm so pleased that we get an opportunity to look in depth at this Irish side of the story. But let's first of all set the scene. So we've got these Spanish ships sailing into the Atlantic. What were the conditions like for the
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B
sailors at the point where they sailed through the Ferral Channel, heading towards the Atlantic? An unfortunate journey from their point of view because they had to go all around the British Isles, way into the Atlantic and then hopefully set down south back towards Spain. There were enduring frequent storms. They had just over a week ago experienced the great Battle of Gravelines where they were battered by the English fleet. However, the fleet was still intact contrary to midst the very few ships had been sunk at the point they were sailing into the Atlantic. This was going to be the great test for them. This is when the majority of the losses were about to occur and immediately
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A
they had problems when it came to provisioning, didn't they? There wasn't really enough food to allow them to make a journey of this kind of scale. This hadn't been predicted.
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B
Oh, very much so. The whole journey around the British Isles was just a consequence of the various circumstances. After the great battle. They had a certain amount of food. They were very short of water, as it happens, as they were sailing up northwards past the Firth or fourth, they were so short of water that the Duke of Medina Sidonia took the decision to jettison the several hundred mules and horses from the ships. And their heartrending stories of fishermen coming across the poor animals, eyes bulging in the water. Perishing.
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A
Horrific, horrific idea. Now, as they went round the Fair Isle Channel, how familiar were they with the route? I mean, the art of navigation was well advanced in Iberia, but was this particular part of the seas well known to them?
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B
No, and they weren't really prepared for that. Before the fleet had departed at Lisbon, Medina Sidonia had ordered a group of navigators to prepare a rudder, which is kind of like a guide for navigation. And while they had a lot of detail on the coast of England, the Channel, the coast of Holland, they had some route, rudimentary information about Ireland mainly, curiously enough, all based on Cape Clear, the most southwesterly point, such and such a port was 80 leagues northwest of Cape Clear, and so on and so forth. But that's all they had. They really had very little information on north of Ireland and the west coast of Ireland.
- [07:16]
A
So they're literally in uncharted waters, and they're in ships built largely for trade in the Mediterranean, or at best, the Baltic, not the Atlantic.
- [07:26]
B
Exactly. The Armada was a total mix of ships. It was effectively an armored convoy. You had the fighting ships, the galleons and armed naus, which are pretty well constructed ships providing the protection. But within that, then you had the transport ships. It really was a transport convoy, transporting soldiers and artillery and other supplies for the invasion of England. And, yes, you had the squadron of the Levant in particular, which proved very vulnerable. These were merchant ships commandeered from the Mediterranean, designed for the relatively good sailing conditions in the Mediterranean, not built for Atlantic waters. And it's interesting, actually, that the Mediterranean end of ships, if you like, were the ones that really suffered in the shipwrecks that followed.
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A
So let's start to think about some of those and particular stories. Soon after sailing through the Fair Isle Channel, four ships became separated from this fleet. Three of them were the Grand Griffon, the Barca d' Ambourg and the Castillo Negro. What happened to these?
- [08:47]
B
One of these disappeared and nothing is known. It supposedly sank in the North Atlantic. One of the ships was foundering and the crew went on to the Trinidad Valencera, which is very important in our story. And two of the ships sank. And the Trinidad Valencera, which was a huge. Probably a grain carrier from the Mediterranean carrying artillery and troops, were floundering on the north coast of Donegal. Very intended, very rough coast. And if I recall, on the 15th of September, they came close to Kinnagal Bay on the north side of the Inishon peninsula. They struck a rock and the ship was stuck there. And most of the crew managed to make their way onshore and some locals started pillaging the ship. There were about, I think about 40 Spanish still on the ship. And then in the storms she broke up. I just want to say that over the course of the whole episode of the ships encountering the Irish coast, there were continuous storms. And one in particular, dubbed by one author as the Great Gale, was a one in a hundred year hurricane which was absolutely ferocious. So the Spanish were utterly unlucky. Before I just go on to what happened to the survivors of the Trinidad Valence air, just to say you mentioned navigation. Navigation was good in the north, south direction. Using astrolabes, they could figure out where they were, north or south of the equator, but at that stage they couldn't figure out longitude. They had no way of figuring out longitude. They tried by throwing out little bits of timber on string by the ship to do calculations, but they had no concept of the Atlantic currents, the Gulf Stream and other currents. And accordingly, the whole fleet, which had been ordered by the Duke of Medina Sidonia to stay well west of Ireland, in reality were about 4 or 500 km closer to Ireland than they had anticipated. And that was the cause of lots of their problems, because the coast of Ireland proved fatal to the armada.
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A
So they couldn't tell basically how far west or east they were, which meant that they came much closer to the Irish coast than they thought exactly.
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B
There were about 400 km in a general sense to the east of where they thought they were and thus closer to the Irish coast. And that causes lots of the problems. But perhaps if I go back to the Trinidad Balencearum, so I think there were five or six hundred on board because they had taken on survivors from another ship. They heard of a Castle about 30 or 40 km down at the base of the Enichon peninsula, and they headed for there. They came to a castle and they set up camp near the castle.
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A
Well, before we look at that, could you just remind us of the political situation in Ireland? Because we've got English rule established in the pale, the eastern part of Ireland around Dublin. What's the situation elsewhere?
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B
Yes, Ireland was in, shall we say, a wild state at that. While you had the Tudor rule well established on the eastern third of the country, on the west, you still had Gaelic lords in charge. The Tudors were trying to tame them, if you like, or gain control. They had gained control in many areas, but in other areas the Gaelic lords still held sway. Totally different culture, of course, to the Tudor English culture, different way of life. The Tudors, the English were on the Qui Vive, particularly in the north of the country, in, you could say present day Ulster, because they were afraid of the influence of the Scottish clans who, you know, quite close to there. And they were afraid that the Scots would take over the northern part of Ireland. And accordingly, they had reached agreement with several of the Gaelic lords, including in particular Hugh o', Neill, to assign garrisons of troops nominally under the control of those Gaelic lords, but in place to establish and maintain the outskirts, if you like, of English rule.
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A
So what did that mean for the Trinidad Valentera?
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B
As I mentioned, they had set off for Elac Castle, which was a castle of Sir Hugh O', Doherty, but within 20km there was another place, Burt Castle, which had this garrison of troops who were mercenaries, a lot of them Irish, nominally reporting to Hugh o', Neill, who later on is known as an Irish hero, But in this episode, he didn't behave with much heroic at the time. The Gaelic lords really were looking after themselves. They had to juggle between allegiance to the Tudors and to try and maintain their own territory. This band of mercenaries at Burk Castle heard of the arrival of the group of Spanish and they set off duly to intercept them, which they did. And there was a bit of a battle and then they had a parlay and the Spanish agreed to surrender on foot of that their lives would be spared. They. They duly laid down their weapons and the officers were separated and the other ranks, the other men were put aside and the mercenary band duly set about to massacre the Spanish. And they killed about 300, about 150, managed to flee. They were given help by the Bishop of Derry and other sympathetic Gaelic lords and ultimately managed to make their way to Scotland. Scotland, by the way, then was neutral in the dispute under the Protestant James. Well, he eventually became James I of England. The officers who had been separated were then sent down to Drogheda Prison, where they were kept for some time before ultimately being ransomed. You see, officers and nobility were worth something. They could. They meant money. They could be ransom.
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A
So already we're talking about a horrific response in terms of this massacre of so many men, others fleeing, hoping for safety, though some being ransomed. One important man in this story in Ireland is Sir Richard Bingham. Tell us about him and his life experience and how we might have expected it would shape his response and. And how it did.
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B
Yes. When news came of the first armada, shipwrecks in Ireland, the Lord Deputy, the man in charge in Dublin, issued a decree that all Spanish be executed. They had a very light amount of English troops in Ireland, and they were scared, naturally, that the Spanish would ally with the Gaelic lords and rise up against them. Now, the Tudor regime had instituted presidencies in various places, down in Munster and in Connaught. And this sir Richard Bingham, who was, if you like, a typical Elizabethan adventurer, had been appointed as president of Connaught. And he had quite a bloody reputation. He had been. He had been soldiering for all his life. He had fought against the Scots. He had fought on the Spanish side, funnily enough, because they were changing loyalties, as you know. In the Battle of St. Quentin, he had fought for the Dutch rebels in Netherlands. He had taken place, taken part as a navy captain in the events in Smerwick in 1580 against the Papal force which had been sent to Gondickerry. But anyway, at this stage, he was president of Connacht, and he in turn issued a decree that anybody would have to hand over any Spanish survivors, and they had four hours to do that under pain of debt. So, over his time, all over the west of Ireland and Connemara, Mayo, when the various Spanish ships were shipwrecked and some were drowned, some survivors made their way onshore. Most of them were captured by Gaelic lords, who cravenly and under fear of death, handed them over to the English authorities. By the end of September 1588, there were about 300, a little over 300 in captivity in Galway prison. And at the beginning of October, Richard Bingham traveled to Galway, and under his orders, the 330 or so were marched out to fort Hill, just outside Galway, and they were put to the sword.
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A
And was there any hint of justice there, or is this just savagery?
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B
It was just savagery. There had been savagery before. Bingham, in his position as a governor, had been engaged over the previous years with the Irish lords who, when they rose up, he had been involved in a massacre of 1500 men, women and children. So there were savage times in those days.
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A
And amazingly, a last will and testament survives from one of the men executed at Galway. Tell me about that.
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B
That, actually, of the whole story of the armada to me, is the most poignant one. Don Antonio de Ulo y Sandoval was one of the survivors of one of the shipwrecks somewhere in Connemara or Mayo. Nothing really is known about him, but as he was being marched to Vontill for execution, he managed to get a sheet of paper and scribble on it. His last testament. And a lot of it was, Benaztov, please give 100 ducats to my cousin Andreas and Then the rest was, please say 20 masses for my soul in such and such a Chapel, and 30 masses in such and such a chapel. And then, very poignantly, he ends the piece of paper in a scribble. The executioner does not give me any more time. And that was it. Curiously enough, that bit of paper survived and got its way back to Spain in the following years year. And at the time, they thought this man was from Zamora in the north of Spain, and the document was lodged in the Spanish National Archives in Semancas, where it still is. But a Spanish historian, Pedro de Chenchillo, did some research on this, and from the chapels mentioned, he deduced that the man was actually from Cordoba. And accordingly, in April 2024, a series of five masses were organized in the Church of San Agustin in Cordoba for the soul of this poor individual. Now, myself and my wife were privileged. Actually, we attended the last mass of that series. But again, highly poignant to see the wishes of this poor man, you know, centuries after his savage death in Galway.
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A
Yes, that's very moving. Another survivor from whom we hear is the Captain Francisco de Coelar. He'd been captain of the Don Pedro and then condemned to death for not obeying the Duke of Medina Sidonia's orders. And he leaves us an account. So tell me about why he wrote, why he proved such a good source, and how trustworthy you think he is.
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B
We're very lucky that Francesco de Quailer wrote that account. He had several months of experiences in County Leitrim and Sligo among what he called los salvaques, the savages, the locals. And he. He eventually made his way up near the North Antrim coast, where he got a boat to get to Scotland, the sanctuary of Scotland, spent several months there, and eventually made his way back to the safety of Spanish Flanders. But on his return there, he wrote a letter about 20 pages recounting his wild adventures to some aristocratic friend of his. But it's a great account. It may or may not be totally accurate. He probably hypes up his own bravery and so on, but still, it's quite apart from the account of the aftermath of the Armada and his survival through Sligo and Leitrim. It's also account of the local situation and the lives of the local people as well, in. In that area. He certainly had such an adventure.
- [23:54]
A
And he calls them savages, as you've pointed out, which we might think, you know, as problematic as a term. It does feel rather justified by their behavior. On the other hand, perhaps it might be useful for Just a second to think about the perspective of the Irish who found these ships washing up on their shores, because he's on one of the ships that runs around north of Sligo, you know, what must it have meant for the local inhabitants?
- [24:25]
B
Gaelic life at that time was totally, absolutely different from the mercantile life in England or on the continent at that time. The Gaelic lords had a very rich culture of poetry and law, but it was totally different. But then the ordinary people would be living a very basic life, herding cattle, dressed in rough garb, totally different from what we would see in the engravings of the Tudors and so on. And de Cuyler is right in one sense, that when the Spanish survivors were washed ashore on the beach at Strida near Sligo, the locals set to on them and stole their clothes, their jewels, their weapons and so on. Truly savage behav. But then, of course, later on, as de Kuyler made his journey, he escaped from the beach. The local English garrison in Sligo galloped out and slaughtered about nearly 200 of the Spanish survivors. De Kuyler managed to escape, and at various stages he was set upon by the locals and robbed. But in other cases, he was met with kindness and looked after. He had an extraordinary experience when he came to Maclancy, a chief, and was put up at his castle at Rossclaw in the middle of an island, Loch Melvin, and looked on with kindness. When the lord deputy came with a sweep out of Dublin to the west of Ireland to round up any Armada survivors, Matlancy, the chieftain, decided to decamp to the nearby mountains. But he left de Quailer behind with eight other Spanish survivors. And according to de Quailer, he and those survivors managed to fend off an English army who were on the shores of the lake. Now, they probably did fend off maybe a scouting party, but who knows? When de Trancy came back afterwards, he was so overcome with gratitude to De Quailer that he offered his sister in marriage to De Quailer, but declined and slipped off one night and managed to get to the Northern Ireland shores and in turn get his boat to Scotland. De Quailer also had an eye for the ladies. He. In much of his account, he noted there, even though they dressed in rough clothes, that they were beauties. So there's everything in de Quailer's account. Adventure, slaughter, savages and touch of romance, perhaps.
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A
Meanwhile, there were other shipwrecks happening off the coast. We've got examples like a ship called Gran Gryn off Clare Island, County Mayo, or the hospital ship San Pedro el Mayor blown towards the Irish coast. What was the fate of these?
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B
Well, the Gran Gryn, there's so many of them. I think this was the one smashed against the Clare island, where on Clare island, that was part of the domain of Granivail, who was the pirate queen. Now, it so happened she wasn't there on the island at that time, but one of her subordinates he just slaughtered, I think 80 of the survivors. I think the rest of them were then handed over to the English authorities. The San Pedro el Mayor, I think, was the ship that was also blown into Blacksod Bay, sheltered there from the weather for a while and then they set off down towards Spain and all was well. But then another storm and they were blown back north and they were shipwrecked in Hope Cove in Devon. I think most of the crew survived, but they were taken into captivity. And this illustrates the one difference between the situation in Ireland and in England. Now, in England there were two captured ships during the Channel battles, and this San Pedro al Nayor, the people captured as they made their way ashore. But all of these were ransomed, none of them were slaughtered. Yet in Ireland, totally different brutal regime. Any of the survivors that were caught were slaughtered, other than a few were ransomed.
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A
One example of genuine Gaelic hospitality seems to come with the Girona, the Italian galleasse that found charter and sought repair and received help. People may have heard of this one, of course, because it was subsequently founded in the 1960s. So tell us the story and what happened here.
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B
The Girona is an amazing story. The backstory is there were a series of shipwrecks. One of the leading Spanish army commanders was in charge of La Rata. He was so prominent that King Philip had issued sealed orders that in the event of the Duke of Medina Sidonia's death, de Leyva was to be the leader of the Aromatic expedition. In any case, it ran ashore in Blacksod Bay. All the men got off the ship. They heard of another ship further up in Blacksod Bay, the Ducassa Santa Anna. They made their way up to the ship, they got on it, it sailed north towards Scotland. Easier, shorter distance than of course, going back to Spain. That was shipwrecked in Locross Bay in Donegal. They all got off safe and then they heard of this ship down to the south in Killybegus harbor. The Girona was a hybrid ship, curious kind of ship. It was mixture of a galley with the nominal crew would be about 280 roars. But it had sails so it could operate with the Wind or useful in battle using roars. The perennial problem of the galleasses were the rudders. Curved rudders, they always failed. Rudder was being repaired and Delava shipwrecked in Locross Bay. And many hundreds now marched down to Killybeck's harbor and got on the Girona, which when repaired on 26 October 1588, set out again headed for Scotland. Far easier than sailing down to Spain. They passed the Giants Causeway in the North coast on 28 October, storm blew up, the rudder failed, and a few kilometers on they were impaled on the sharp point of the utter nasty reef called Lakada Point. Ship went down straight away, all aboard. All of the over 1200 people aboard were drowned. I think figures vary. There were five to nine survivors. This actually is the worst shipwreck in Irish maritime history up to the time of the Lusitania in, I think, 1915. And about the same amount of people were drowned. The Girona is significant in the sense that, as you say, its location was discovered in the 60s and for excavations. And they found a hoard of things quite apart from the usual cannons and artifacts and wheels of the artillery detachments. I had mentioned delay, the illustrious army commander in his wake. He had about 15 young noblemen who were going just for the glory of war. They fully expected that when the Armada reached Margate, within a week they'd be parading in their finery down the streets of London. But anyway, they had brought their jewels with them, and there was a fabulous hoard of jewels, such as salamanders with rubies, the cross of Santiago, lapis, lazuli, broaches. And these are all now to be seen in the Ulster Museum in Belfast. In my experience, the exhibition on the Armada in the Ulster Museum has the best Armada exhibition in the world. It's really absolutely fabulous to see this.
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A
I must go and see it. And actually I was struck by the photographs in your book which make it clear that you went to the locations of these shipwrecks. How helpful was it to do that?
- [33:49]
B
Oh, it brings it home to you and you can really appreciate it. By the way, I spent several years on this and I do spend several months of each year in Spain. And I did travel, of course, to San Luca de Barrameda. The palace of the Duke of Medina Sidonia was at Lisbon, of course, and then Corona. And one significant trip I did in Spain was to go near San Sebastian to place called Pasaya, where the shipbuilding museum were in the course of constructing a real life replica of a 1550 now merchant ship. And it gave me some understanding of the techniques and the wood and so on that they use, because in the Overall sense of things, 128, a Spanish ship set out from Corona in July 1588 and 91 came back. That's around two thirds. And it's a tribute to the ships built on the north coast of Spain, the quality and that they were able to stand up to the cannon fire first and then to the unimaginable storms in the Atlantic. On the way back in Ireland, yes, I visited many of the places. Kinnago Bay and Black Salt Bay and Clare island and so on. Usually I had mentioned at the very beginning that Aroto was mentioned, Cape Clare, not too far from where I was brought up. It's an island, the most southern point of Ireland, mentioned not just in the rotter, but in all of the Spanish dispatches that when they hit Ireland and they claimed that they were just off of Cape Clear, but in reality, no Spanish ship went near it.
- [36:14]
A
Now we know that there were also shipwrecks in County Clare and also, of course, in Kerry, in County Clare, we've got the sheriff extraordinarily named Boethius Clancy. Did he keep to Bingham's strategy?
- [36:31]
B
He was a minor official, he was Irish, but he had thrown his lot in with the English administration. He was a man on the make. I think he was a member of Parliament for Clare as well. And yes, when he certainly kept to orders, because I think of the two ships which were shipwrecked off the coast of Clare, one of which, which I'll mention in a minute, There were about 80 survivors and eventually they were marched to a hill now known as Connaught Macrocharra, which in Irish means the hill of the hanged. And they were hanged and buried close by there. However, nobody. Various legends are that it's here or there, but they never have really established where this is. But just you mentioned the ships of Clare, just to mention one, one was shipwrecked off the White Strand near Doonbeg in County Clare. And the odd thing is that Doonbeg is where Donald Trump's golf resort is. And I remember climbing up on the sand dunes and standing next to the 13 tee, taking my photographs of the White Strand and where one of the Spanish ships went up. I don't think the. The Donald knows about this.
- [38:07]
A
Clancy kept a souvenir, didn't he? Apparently of the Armada.
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B
Yes.
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A
I mean, this is kind of extraordinary, you know, all the people killed. But let's make the most of what's left out of her?
- [38:19]
B
Well, I think souvenirs of the Armada were a big thing. I believe there, there are a lot in Britain and somebody said they're more British souvenirs than you could have in a, you know, timber, bits of timber and so on that you could have all for us. But anyway, there is this Armada table. It's a fine looking table which apparently is made from the mahogany found on the Spanish ships. And it was sold in auction about three years ago for. Is it a third of a million euro?
- [38:53]
A
Extraordinary. And down in Kerry, east of Tralee, there was an English couple, Sir Edward and Lady Margaret Denny. You write about. Why did they implement the sort of local policy with such particular enthusiasm?
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B
First of all, Sir Edward Dennie. It was an adventure. I think he had indulged in the usual run of piracy and then Ireland was like the Tudor Wild west for adventurers. You know, men on the make, they could make a lot of money. There had been the massacre in Smurwich, which is again, I had mentioned the papal force which had set up unwisely on the prominentry on the Dingle Peninsula. And they were surrounded and they surrendered and then 600 of them were massacred. Denny was one of those. As one of the rewards for his assiduous work, he got land. After the Desmond rebellion, the land was broken up, the land was seized and large chunks of lands were handed over in a plantation. In other words, an undertaker would take over a big amount of land and then he'd subdivide it up to settlers who would give him rent and so on. So Denny was a big landowner around Traleen. And when it was a relatively small Spanish ship tender, Nuestro Senora del Socorro came in to a little inlet called Barrow Harbor. There were only 30 aboard. They surrendered. But Denis was away on some dispute in Cork and his wife arranged that after the surrender, arranged that they be killed. I think one of the excuses was that there was no way to secure them or keep them in captivity.
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A
We have another interesting testimony that comes out from interrogations in Kerry. A Genoese youth called Giovanni Manona. You write he discloses a fascinating fact. Can you tell me about his testimony?
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B
Yes. Just to explain that another group of ships came into Blasket Sound at the end of the Dingle peninsula. And again in the great storm, the great hurricane of 21st September, the Nuestro Senora, the Rosario, was swept against a reef called the Stromboli Reef, named after an English naval ship laterally Struck the reef. All were drowned, except two survivors who swept ashore who were ultimately like all the survivors were slaughtered. But this was a young Genoese youth who you can imagine was, as he was being interrogated, was scared out of his wits and he was trying to tell stories to his captors that would engage them and keep their interests, such as that there was a big chest of money on board. But probably the most intriguing tale of the entire Armada episode is he claimed that the Prince of Ascoli, who at that time around Europe was reputed to be the illegitimate son of Philip ii, King of Spain. Now, whether it's true or not is another story that he had come aboard in the maneuvers at Gravelines on their ship, the Santa Maria de la Rosa, and that he had gone down. And this was like today. Anything about the royalty is sensational news. This report went back to London and the Lord Chancellor, Lord Burghley, scribbled on the report, the King of Spain's bastard on it. But anyway, there is a local legend in Dingle stating that the King of Spain's son is buried there. And up on the slopes of Mount Eagle, the great mountain looking out over Glasgow in a field, there is what probably is a Neolithic zone standing up. It's known as Champil Vora, which is the temple of millennia old Celtic saint, I guess. But that particular point is called Wag on Spanock, the grave of the Spaniard. And legend has it it's the King of Spain's son buried there. But unfortunately, while it's a great story, it's not true because the Prince of Askeli, in actual fact, as attested by records, was involved confusion when the fire ships went in at Calais and the ships were dashing around. He had been sent off to alert other ships to slip their anchors and he was left behind and he went ashore at Calais and eventually ended up with the Duke of Parma in the Spanish Flanders, which he told the story in a letter to King Philip two weeks later, which kind of gives a hint that he really meant something to Philip. But anyway, it's a great story, but. But unfortunately, the son of the King of Spain is not buried down near Dunqueen on the Dinkle peninsula.
- [44:39]
A
Oh, well, we do have to bring some truth to the stories of the past. So let's try and reach some conclusions because this is mostly a story of wholesale slaughter in Ireland of those who are survivors from shipwrecks. As you've said, this doesn't happen in England and it doesn't happen in the Netherlands. So can we think a Little bit more about how to make sense of it and why the instructions are followed so closely and what happens to those who do otherwise. Those who try and help. Some of the Armada survivors, the Gaelic
- [45:20]
B
chieftains who are even the bishops, particularly the Bishop Darry, who did show kindness to the survivors, they came to a bad end and Maclancy and a few others were captured and a few years later were killed. The Bishop of Derry was killed as well. One of them ended up in the Tower of London. So it didn't end well for them. Another legacy, if I may say, is that one hears everywhere of the Black Irish on the west coast of Ireland. A lot of people have dark hair, sallow complexions. I confess, believe it or not, I once was one of those. The allegation is that there were descendants of the Spanish soldiers, sailors from the Spanish Arab. But there are other reasons for it. But this particular myth is not true. The poor devils were those that got away were lurking in the mountains and the forests and they had other things on their mind than cavorting with the Colleens. Reasons for it. There had been centuries of Spanish fishing off the coast of Ireland. There had been trade between Spain and Ireland. And the DNA of the Irish has about 20% connection with those in northern Spain. But that is for reasons of four millennia before. But no, the dark haired Irish are not begotten by the sailors of the Spanish Armada.
- [47:02]
A
You can understand why you'd rather say that you were descended from a soldier or sailor who was an Armada survivor than a fisherman, though I understand why the rumor has started. But the bottom line is this. That's not credible because of the number lost in Ireland. So of all of the estimated losses of the Armada, how significant are the deaths in Ireland to that number?
- [47:29]
B
Extremely significant figures have varied for the total losses in the Armada. But the latest figure I've come across is about just under 10,000 fatalities of the 28,000 personnel, if you like, of the Armada soldiers and sailors, and of that just under 10,000, one estimate is that about 5,250 of those were either drowned or slaughtered in Ireland. The slaughtered element has been given as 1500 men.
- [48:08]
A
Well, it's a sobering thought, and these stories are sobering, but I'm very grateful to you and fellow historians for delving into the individual experiences of these ships and the men on board them.
- [48:23]
B
There has built up quite a tradition now all across the west coast and north of Ireland, tradition of commemoration of the Armada survivors. In Northern Ireland, near where the Girona went down, they have commemorations there. They have commemorations in Donegal and the big one is in Sligo, where every year around the 22nd of September, they commemorate the three ships which were shipwrecked there, the Spanish Armada. Ireland have marched to the beach street of beach and they in recent years have placed a thousand crosses on the beach. Again, very poignant. And it's supported by the Spanish government, Spanish navy ship docks and there's a Spanish navy contingent and a band and various admirals attend that. And I just recall what the Spanish ambassador to Ireland said when he launched my book in Dublin a year and a half ago. He said that while the Spanish Armada had been in Spain, sad thing of tragedy. To some degree now it's shaping up that in Ireland this tragedy is a good thing. It's a means of bringing Irish local communities together with Spain and it brings harmony between the two countries. So I thought that was a very profound statement.
- [50:09]
A
It's very good that some good has come out of this awful tragedy because it feels like it does some sort of level of justice to at least know the stories. Thank you so much for coming on.
- [50:21]
B
Thank you very much.
- [50:24]
A
Thank you for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tudors From History Hit. Thank you also to my researcher, Max Wintool, my producer Rob Weinberg, and to Amy Haddo, who edited this episode. We are all always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line@notjusthetorshistoryhit.com and I look forward to joining you again for another episode. Next time on not just the Tudors From History Hit.