the English and the weather

We may grumble at a few spots of rain, but the weather has saved our nation more times than we realise

There was a documentary on TV recently, a dumbed-down life of Queen Elizabeth 1st, aired by Channel 5. It devoted just a few minutes to the threatened invasion of Britain by the Spanish Armada in 1588 and gave the sole reason for its defeat as the efforts of Francis Drake. Almost as an afterthought, they concluded with the words, “then the ships were blown northwards”.

What actually happened was very different. Even Wikipedia concedes that the reasons for the defeat was a combination of mismanagement by the King of Spain, Drake’s military prowess and unfortunate weather. It’s on the latter point that I wish to focus and we find two key episodes in the battle where the weather was a determining factor.