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Visual History of the World
(CONTENTS)
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The Early Modern Period
16th - 18th century
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The smooth transition from
the Middle Ages to the Modern Age is conventionally fixed on such
events as the Reformation and the discovery of the "New World,"
which brought about the emergence of a new image of man and his
world. Humanism, which spread out of Italy, also made an essential
contribution to this with its promotion of a critical awareness of
Christianity and the Church. The Reformation eventually broke the
all-embracing power of the Church. After the Thirty Years' War, the
concept of a universal empire was also nullified. The era of the
nation-state began, bringing with it the desire to build up
political and economic power far beyond Europe. The Americas,
Africa, and Asia provided regions of expansion for the Europeans.
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Proportions of the Human Figure by Leonardo da Vinci (drawing, ca.
1490)
is a prime example of the new approach of Renaissance
artists and scientists to the anatomy of the human body.
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Spain and Portugal
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1500-1800
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Voyages of discovery and merchant shipping made Portugal and Spain
the leading sea powers of Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth
century. Under Philip II, Spain also became the major force behind the
Counter-Reformation. A rapid economic and political decline took place
in Portugal after 1580 and in Spain after 1600, accelerated by the often
weak and conservative governments. This decline lasted until around
1750, when reforms associated with enlightened absolutism elsewhere were
carried out in both countries. In the wake of the French Revolution,
both countries fell under Napoleon's control.
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Philip II
Portrait of king Felipe II
of Spain and his second spouse
Queen Maria I of England
by Hans Eworth
or Ewoutsz
king of Spain and Portugal
born , May 21, 1527, Valladolid, Spain
died Sept. 13, 1598, El Escorial, Spain
Main
king of the Spaniards (1556–98) and king of the Portuguese (as Philip I,
1580–98), champion of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation. During his
reign the Spanish Empire attained its greatest power, extent, and
influence, though he failed to suppress the revolt of the Netherlands
(beginning in 1566) and lost the “Invincible Armada” in the attempted
invasion of England (1588).
Early life and marriages
Philip was the son of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V and Isabella of
Portugal. From time to time, the emperor wrote Philip secret memoranda,
impressing on him the high duties to which God had called him and
warning him against trusting any of his advisers too much. Philip, a
very dutiful son, took this advice to heart. From 1543 Charles conferred
on his son the regency of Spain whenever he himself was abroad. From
1548 until 1551, Philip traveled in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands,
but his great reserve and his inability to speak fluently any language
except Castilian made him unpopular with the German and Flemish
nobility.
Philip contracted four marriages. The first was with his cousin Maria
of Portugal in 1543. She died in 1545, giving birth to the ill-fated Don
Carlos. In 1554 Philip married Mary I of England and became joint
sovereign of England until Mary’s death, without issue, in 1558.
Philip’s third marriage, with Elizabeth of Valois, daughter of Henry II
of France, in 1559, was the result of the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis
(1559), which, for a generation, ended the open wars between Spain and
France. Elizabeth bore Philip two daughters, Isabella Clara Eugenia
(1566–1633) and Catherine Micaela (1567–97). Elizabeth died in 1568, and
in 1570 Philip married Anna of Austria, daughter of his first cousin the
emperor Maximilian II. She died in 1580, her only surviving son being
the later Philip III.
King of Spain
Philip had received the Duchy of Milan from Charles V in 1540 and the
kingdoms of Naples and Sicily in 1554 on the occasion of his marriage to
Mary of England. On October 25, 1555, Charles resigned the Netherlands
in Philip’s favour and, on January 16, 1556, the kingdoms of Spain and
the Spanish overseas empire. Shortly afterward Philip also received the
Franche-Comté. The Habsburg dominions in Germany and the imperial title
went to his uncle Ferdinand I. At this time Philip was in the
Netherlands. After the victory over the French at St. Quentin (1557),
the sight of the battlefield gave him a permanent distaste for war,
though he did not shrink from it when he judged it necessary.
After his return to Spain from the Netherlands in 1559, Philip never
again left the Iberian Peninsula. From Madrid he ruled his empire
through his personal control of official appointments and all forms of
patronage. Philip’s subjects outside Castile, thus, never saw him, and
they gradually turned not only against his ministers but also against
him. This happened particularly in the Netherlands, in Granada, and in
Aragon.
Method of government
By sheer hard work Philip tried to overcome the defects of this system.
His methods have become famous. All work was done on paper, on the basis
of consultas (that is, memoranda, reports, and advice presented him by
his ministers). In Madrid, or in the gloomy magnificence of his monastic
palace of El Escorial, which he built (1563–84) on the slopes of the
Sierra de Guadarrama, the king worked alone in his small office, giving
his decisions or, as often, deferring them. Nothing is known of his
order of work, but all his contemporaries agreed that his methods
dangerously, and sometimes fatally, slowed down a system of government
already notorious for its dilatoriness. Philip was painstaking and
conscientious in his cravings for ever more information, hiding an
inability to distinguish between the important and the trivial and a
temperamental unwillingness to make decisions.
This was coupled with an almost pathological suspicion of even his
most able and faithful servants. Margaret of Parma; the Duke of Alba;
Don John of Austria; Antonio Pérez; and Alessandro Farnese—to name only
the most distinguished—suffered disgrace. “His smile and his dagger were
very close,” wrote his official court historian, Cabrera de Córdoba. It
was no exaggeration, for, in the case of Juan de Escobedo, the secretary
of Don John of Austria, Philip even consented to murder. As a result,
Philip’s court became notorious for the bitterness of its faction
fights. The atmosphere of the Spanish court did much to poison the whole
Spanish system of government, and this played no small part in causing
the rebellions of the Netherlanders (1568–1609), of the Moriscos of
Granada (1568–70), and of the Aragonese (1591–92).
Yet the “black legend” that, in Protestant countries, represented
Philip II as a monster of bigotry, ambition, lust, and cruelty is
certainly false. Philip’s spare and elegant appearance is known from the
famous portraits by Titian and by Anthonis Mor (Sir Anthony More). He
was a lover of books and pictures, and Spain’s literary Golden Age began
in his reign. An affectionate father to his daughters, he lived an
austere and dedicated life. “You may assure His Holiness,” Philip wrote
to his ambassador in Rome, in 1566, “that rather than suffer the least
damage to religion and the service of God, I would lose all my states
and an hundred lives, if I had them; for I do not propose nor desire to
be the ruler of heretics.” This remark may be regarded as the motto of
his reign. To accomplish the task set him by God of preserving his
subjects in the true Catholic religion, Philip felt in duty bound to use
his royal powers, if need be, to the point of the most ruthless
political tyranny, as he did in the Netherlands. Even the popes found it
sometimes difficult to distinguish between Philip’s views as to what was
the service of God and what the service of the Spanish monarchy.
Foreign policy
For the first 20 years of his reign, Philip sought to preserve peace
with his neighbours in western Europe. He was fighting a major naval war
with the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean and, from 1568, he was
faced with rebellion and war in the Netherlands. From the late 1570s,
his policy gradually changed. The death (August 1578) without heirs of
his nephew, King Sebastian of Portugal, opened up the prospect of
Philip’s succession to Portugal. He had to conquer (1580) by force what
he regarded as his just, hereditary rights, but the rest of Europe was
alarmed at this growth in Spanish power.
Both England and France gave increasing support to the rebellious
provinces of the Netherlands. Gradually, in the 1580s, Philip became
convinced that the Catholic religion in western Europe, and his own
authority in the Netherlands, could be saved only by open intervention
against England and France. To this end he fitted out the Armada that,
with the help of the Spanish Army in the Netherlands, was intended to
conquer England (1588). He sent money and troops to support the League,
the ultra-Catholic party in France, against Henry of Navarre and the
Huguenots. He even claimed the throne of France for his daughter,
Isabella Clara Eugenia, after the murder of Henry III in 1589. Again,
even his Catholic allies found it difficult to distinguish between
Philip’s championship of the Catholic church and the interests of Spain.
All these plans failed. Henry of Navarre became a Catholic (1593) and
Philip had to accept (Peace of Vervins, 1598) his succession as Henry IV
of France. England and the northern Netherlands remained Protestant and
unconquered. Yet Philip’s reign as a whole was not a failure. He had
defeated the great Ottoman offensive in the Mediterranean at the Battle
of Lepanto (1571). In the Iberian Peninsula he had completed the work of
unification begun by the “Catholic Monarchs,” Ferdinand and Isabella.
Most important of all, in his own eyes, he had won great victories for
the Catholic church. If England, Scotland, and the northern Netherlands
were lost, the southern Netherlands (modern Belgium) had been preserved.
In Spain and Italy he had prevented the spread of heresy, and his
intervention in France was one of the factors that forced Henry IV to
become a Catholic.
When Philip II died of cancer at El Escorial in 1598, Spain was still
at the height of its power; it took almost 50 years before it was clear
that the Counter-Reformation would make no further major conquests.
Helmut Georg Koenigsberger
Encyclopaedia Britannica
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See collection:
El Greco
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El Greco: The Burial of Count Orgaz, 1586
Two saints bury the munificent
donor
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The Burial of the Count of Orgaz
1586-88
Oil on canvas, 480 x 360 cm
Santo Tome, Toledo
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The canvas, 4.8 metres high and 3.6 metres wide, covers the
entire wall of a chapel, reaching from the arch of the ceiling
almost to the ground. The figures are life-sized, painted in 1586
for the Santo Tome church in Toledo by the Cretan artist Domenikos
Theotokopulos, known in Spain as El Greco, the Greek.
El Greco's painting shows a miracle, said to have occurred in the
Santo Tome church at the burial of Don Gonzalo Ruiz in 1312.
According to legend, St. Stephan and St. Augustine appeared and laid
the mortal remains of Gonzalo Ruiz in the grave.
Ruiz, erstwhile Chancellor of Castile and governor of Orgaz, was a
man of great wealth and influence, whose beni-ficence had been
especially apparent towards institutions of the church. Through his
good offices, the Augustiman Order acquired a developable site
within the Toledo town walls. He gave financial support to the
construction of a monastery, too, and to the building of the church
of Santo Tome. He even made provision that the town of Orgaz should,
after his death, make an annual donation to both church and
monastery of two lambs, sixteen chickens, two skins of wine, two
loads of firewoood and 800 coins. According to the testimony of the
saints who attended his funeral, their presence there conferred high
distinction upon one who had "served his God and saints". On
vanishing, they are said to have left a divine fragrance on the air.
El Greco made no attempt to clothe his figures in medieval dress.
Social or political change was little understood at the time, and
attention to detail of this kind would, in any case, have conflicted
with his patron's wishes: the painting was not intended to recall an
historical event, but to encourage contemporary spectators to follow
the worthy example it honoured.
Emphasis on the contemporary relevance of the subject probably
contributed to the artist's realistic rendering of many details in
the lower, more worldly half of the painting: ruffs, lace cuffs, the
transparent supplice. Furthermore, the Toledans would have
recognized, among the gentlemen in black, several of their most
well-known citizens.
El Greco gives to the two returned saints the appearance of ordinary
persons (showing them without the nimbus which typically invested
such figures). He portrays Augustine, the great church father, as a
venerable greybeard in a bishop's mitre, while Stephan, reputed to
be the first Christian martyr, appears as a young man. A further
painting is inset in his mantle: the lapidation of St. Stephan.
Stephan was the patron saint of the monastery to which Gonzalo Ruiz
had given his support. The robe of the priest standing at the right
edge of the painting carries a series of emblems referring to St.
Thomas, patron saint of the church and also of architects, whose
attribute was usually a builder's square.
It seems the artist chose the theme of the miracle in order to
deliver a lesson in ha-giology. This may explain why, confronted
with such an extraordinary event, the figures maintain their
composure: not one is shown throwing up his hands in fright, or
sinking in a state of shock to his knees. On the contrary, the monks
on the left are engaged in discussion, while others calmly point to
the event, as if illustrating a tenet of doctrine.
Indeed, to 16th-century Toledans that was exactly what the painting
meant. The legend was part of general religious knowledge, related
and reinterpreted each year in a service held on St. Stephan's day
at the church of Santo Tome. The artist's vision conflated past and
present, simultaneously showing the miracle and its incorporation
into ecclesiastical doctrine.
El Greco's Heaven comes in muted tones; only the Virgin Mary is
somewhat brighter in colour. The figure behind her is Peter with his
keys; further down are the Old Testament "saints": King David with
his harp, Moses and the stone tablets of the decalogue, Noah and his
ark. John the Baptist kneels opposite Mary, while Jesus Christ is
enthroned on high. El Greco depicts the soul of the dead Gonzalo
Ruiz as the transparent figure of a child borne up in the arms of an
angel. The soul's progress appears obstructed, however, or
restricted to a narrow strait between two converging clouds.
This might seem surprising, given the high distinction conferred
upon the pious man at the burial of his mortal remains. An
inconsistency perhaps? In fact, the artist had good reason not to
take for granted the soul's unimpeded progress to heaven. The reason
lay in the political predicament of the church at the close of 16th
century.
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The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (detail)
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Fighting for the Holy Virgin
The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (detail)
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El Greco painted in the century of the Reformation.
Protestant thought had found few followers on the Iberian
peninsula, but the Netherlands, where it had spread very
quickly, and where Spaniards and Netherlandish mercenaries
fought each other over towns, ports and the true faith, was
part of the Spanish empire.
News from their northern province filled pious Spanish souls
with terror: church statues of saints had been cast down
from their pedestals, paintings of the Virgin pierced by
lances - satanic forces were at work. That the events had
less to do with the revival of the church than with the work
of the Devil was confirmed by reports of iconoclasts tearing
the saints to shreds and leaving the demons at their feet
intact.
It was the demotion of their most highly venerated Virgin
Mary that disturbed the Spaniards most. Luther, so it was
reported, had said Mary was no holier than any other
Christian believer, while yet another Reformer had said that
if Mary had been a purse full of gold before Christ's birth,
she was an empty purse afterwards, and that anybody who
prayed to the Virgin was committing blasphemy by exalting a
woman to the rank of a god.
The great respect commanded by the Holy Virgin south of the
Pyrenees stood in peculiar contrast to the disregard shown
to women in Spanish society. Their status was far below that
of women in Italy, Germany or France. One explanation may
lie in the fact that large tracts of Spain, including Toledo
itself, had been under Moorish rule for many centuries. The
Moors thought of women as base creatures who, easily
tempted, required constant surveillance. Although there were
famous nuns in Spain, the mistress of a king, by contrast
with her French peer, had no influence whatsoever. Women had
no place in the public sphere, as El Greco's painting so
ably demonstrates: Mary is the only large-scale female
figure among countless men in Heaven and on earth.
In the 16th and 17th centuries the Virgin Mary was the most
significant religious and cultural figure in Spanish life:
many works by Lope de Vega and Calderon are dedicated to
her.
The militant adoration of the Virgin climaxed in the dispute
surrounding her Immaculate Conception. This did not, as
might be imagined, refer to the begetting of Jesus Christ,
but to Mary's own procreation. Her mother was said to have
conceived her either without male contribution, or, if a
man's presence at the event were conceded, without original
sin, for the man was merely God's instrument. Although the
pope did not raise the Immaculate Conception to a dogma
until the 19th century, it had been tantamount to a dogma in
Spain long before. In 1618 the Spanish universities were put
under obligation to teach and actively defend the Immaculate
Conception.
From a Spanish point of view, however, the Protestants had
not only debased the Holy Virgin, they had also got rid of
the saints, who were tremendously important to the Catholic
faith. To say that El Greco underlines the integral function
of the saints in this painting would be an understatement.
Together with the Virgin, it is they who intercede with the
distant, enthroned figure of Christ on behalf of the souls
of the dead; only through their supplication can the barrier
of clouds dissolve and the soul find its way to paradise
unhindered. The painting's theological intervention
demonstrates the rupture of the vital dynamic suggested in
the brightly lit undersides of the clouds: the upward surge
through the vortex of light to Jesus Christ is obstructed.
Since the Reformation had degraded the Virgin and the
saints, it was now the task of the Counter-Reformation to
effectively demonstrate their significance.
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The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (detail)
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A king among saints
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The painting also contains a portrait of Philip II of Spain, who,
in 1586, was still on the throne. He is shown sitting among the
saints who, gathered behind John, are interceding for the soul of
Ruiz. Philip's empire was the largest of all European states. It not
only included the Netherlands and Naples with southern Italy, but
colonies in Central and South America, some of which "were literally
borderless. This was the empire on -which - in the words of the
well-known dictum - the sun never set.
Of course, his life was as remote from his many subjects as any god.
Furthermore, the court etiquette he had inherited from his father
ensured that court and government officials kept their distance.
Only a small elite was ever admitted to his presence, and anybody
who handed something to him in person was obliged to do so on his
knees. However, there was one important element of his father's
etiquette which, characteristically, Philip altered: priests were no
longer obliged to genuflect before him. He gave to the ambassadors
of the kingdom of God, though appointed by himself, a status far
greater than that accorded to the representatives of worldly
affairs.
This was altogether typical of Philip's rule. He set greater store
by defending his faith than his empire. No personal loss could hurt
him more deeply, he wrote upon receiving news of the Netherlandish
iconoclasts, than the slightest insult or disrespect to the Lord and
his effigies. Even "the ruin" of all his lands could not hinder him
from "doing what a Christian and God-fearing sovereign must do in
the service of God and in testimony to his Catholic faith and the
power and honour of the Apostolic See."
Philip II had a powerful instrument at his disposal: the
Inquisition. In other countries the authorities who condemned
apostates, unbelievers and witches were purely clerical; afterwards,
offenders were handed over to the state authorities, who would then
enforce the penalty. In Spain even the trial was subordinate to the
throne. The king appointed the Grand Inquisitor, and the persecution
of non-Catholics served interests of state. For over 700 years the
Moors, finally defeated in 1492, had ruled over almost the whole
Iberian peninsula. Only families who converted from Islam to
Christinity were permitted to remain in Spain. The same applied to
Jews. They, too, suffered enforced baptism.
Though hundreds of thousands of Jews and Muslims had left the
country, or were in the process of doing so, Philip still saw
Catholic Spain threatened by unbelievers who merely paid lip-service
to Christ, or by heretics secretly plotting insurrection. The
Inquisition acted as a secret police force, defending the status quo
and transferring to the state the wealth and property of those it
condemned.
Combined religious and racial persecution was one of the chief
factors leading to the decline of the Spanish empire. The Jews had
been specialists in foreign trade and finance; the country's best
physicians were Jews, and they constituted the cream of its
university teachers. It was thanks to Jewish scholars and
translators that forgotten manuscripts by antique philosophers "were
translated from Arabic into Latin, thus becoming available to
Christian theologians.
For their part, the Muslims had farmed vast areas of the country,
and the success of agriculture depended on Moorish irrigation
systems. Now that they were gone, the fields were bare, the villages
depopulated, and the businesses of the merchants collapsed. For
Philip, however, as for the clergy, the Spanish grandees and a large
section of the Spanish population, this was less important than
defending the faith.
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The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (detail) |
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Monument to a priest
The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (detail)
Yet Philip's unrealistic religious zeal was not the only factor
that earned him a place among the saints in Heaven in El Greco's
painting. Other artists, too, for example Durer in his All Saints'
Altarpiece of 1511, gave a place in Heaven to their most prominent
contemporaries. In so doing, they enjoyed the support of St.
Augustine's "City of God", in which the domains of Heaven and earth
were interwoven, providing theological justification for the
depiction of mortals as the inhabitants of Heaven.
The priest portrayed reading is Andres Nunez, who, at the time in
question, was responsible for the parish of Santo Tome. It is to him
that we owe the existence of this painting. Commissioning El Greco
to execute the work was the final act in a campaign Nunez had
conducted for decades in an attempt to bring just renown to Gonzalo
Ruiz and -lest it be forgot - himself.
His first undertaking of this kind had been the attempt to move
Gonzalo's grave. The pious Castilian chancellor had chosen an
inconspicuous corner of the church of Santo Tome as the resting
place of his earthly remains — apparently a sign of his modesty.
Nunez wanted his bones moved to a more auspicious place, but his
superiors rejected the request, for "the hands of sinners" should
not touch the body of one who had been "touched by the hands of
saints".
Consequently, Nunez decided to build a chapel with a high dome over
the immured coffin. Soon after this demonstrative deed in memory of
the lord of Orgaz (it was his descendents who received the title of
count), the citizens of Orgaz decided to annul the 250-year-old
legacy of two lambs, 16 chickens, two skins of wine, two loads of
firewood and 800 coins. Nunez instituted legal proceedings, winning
the case in 1569. In order to record his triumph he had a Latin text
mounted above the grave, recounting the legend and referring to the
rebuttal of the town of Orgaz through "the vigorous efforts of
Andres Nunez".
The smart priest thus created a monument to himself. After applying
to the archbishopric in 1584, he was granted permission to
commission a painting of the miracle of the interment. El Greco was
commissioned in 1586 and delivered the painting in the same year.
Whatever the work may owe to the personal ambition of a priest, it
has to be said that propagation of the miracle of the burial was
also fully in keeping with Counter-Reformation church policy. It was
seen as important not only to exalt the Virgin and saints, but to
defend the need for charitable donations and the worship of relics.
According to Catholic belief, the route to Heaven was paved with
"good deeds", a view rejected by Reformers, for whom faith and
divine mercy were all that counted. The Reformers also vehemently
opposed the veneration of relics, a cult of considerable
significance in Catholic countries. It was at this time, too, that
Gaspar de Quiroga, appointed archbishop in 1577, brought the bones
of St. Leocadia and St. Ildefonso to Toledo, thereby greatly adding
to the status of its cathedral. Santo Tome's painting of the burial
extolled the piety of charitable donations, at the same time
defending the worship of relics. For had not two saints touched, and
thereby honoured, the mortal frame? Was it not therefore correct to
infer that all Christians should honour the mortal remains of the
pious, the saints and the martyrs?
The painting's gigantic format complied with Counter-Reformation
propaganda in yet another sense: its stunning visual impact. The
Protestants, by contrast, wished to see their churches purified of
all ornamentation. Places of worship were to be free of graven
images, or at least not crowded with visual distractions from God's
word. But the Catholics thought otherwise: since the church was
God's house, why not use every means possible to decorate it in His
honour? The exuberant splendour of Baroque churches was, not least,
a reaction against the plain churches of the Reformation.
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The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (detail)
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Reality as a stage set
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The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (detail)
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The boy pointing so meaningfully at the saint was El Greco's son;
his year of birth, 1578, can be deciphered on his handkerchief. When
his father painted the miracle, he was eight years old. The contract
was concluded on 18th March. El Greco finished the work, whose value
was estimated by two experts at 1200 ducats, by Ghristmas. Since the
price was too steep for the parish council of Santo Tome, it
appointed two experts of its own, only to find that they arrived at
a value of 1600 ducats. It was not until July 1588 that the parties
agreed - on the lower sum.
El Greco was dogged by financial problems almost all his life. He
was not a prince among painters, like Titian, in whose Venice studio
he had trained. "The Greek" was born in 1541 on Crete, which, at
that time, was under Venetian rule. He learned icon painting, left
for Venice where he became a master of spatial representation and
architectonic perspective, then moved to Rome. When Pius V,
disturbed by the nudity of some of the figures in Michelangelo's
Last Judgement, wanted some of the frescos in the Sistine Chapel
painted over, El Greco is reputed to have offered to paint an
equally good, but more decent, work if the original were destroyed.
It is not known when, or why, El Greco settled in Spain. It is
possible he felt ill at ease with the Italian artists' exaltation of
corporeal and architectural beauty; perhaps he hoped his
celebrations of the afterlife would find greater recognition in
Spain. Spanish cardinals, resident in Rome, are likely to have
spoken of the Escorial, Philip II's palatial monastery, and El Greco
may have hoped to find work there. Instead he settled in the old
religious capital of Toledo, the seat of the archbishop. In 1579 the
king commissioned a painting from him - the only order he received
from that source. Philip apparently disliked the Greek's paintings.
Spiritually they had much in common. For both, the afterlife was
more important than this life. Philip longed to rule from the
Escorial in the company of monks, and to be able to see an altar
even from his bed. This view meant more to him than his empire: his
Armada was defeated in 1588; in 1598, the year of his death,
financial pressures forced him to give up his war against France,
and the northern provinces of the Netherlands were already as good
as lost.
El Greco's whole life's work, and this painting in particular, bears
witness to his belief that the kingdom of heaven was more important
and more real than the world in which we live. Though he is
painstakingly exact in his detailed rendering of the lower, worldly
half of the painting, the realistic heads and dress have the effect
of drawing the burial scene into the foreground, while the
isocephalic arrangement of onlookers' heads gives the appearance of
the top of a stage set. It is only here, behind this dividing line,
that the true life begins. Only the upper half is dynamic, vital
through and through, an effect achieved with the help of lighting
and a use of depth and line that draws the eye upward.
It remains to be said that not all Spaniards ceded to the uncritical
renunciation of reality. The writer Miguel de Cervantes, for
example, a contemporary of El Greco and Philip II, took a different
point of view. Though he did not attack the religious zeal of his
compatriots, his character Don Quixote, a chivalrous and deluded
idealist, illustrates the dangers that may befall a person who
inhabits a world of fantasy rather than facts, someone who, in
pursuit of ideals, loses sight of the ground beneath his feet.
Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen
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See collection:
El Greco
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Philip II,
on the Defeat of the Spanish Armada
Sent to Invade
England:
"We must praise God for all that He does. And I thank Him for the mercy
shown.
In the storms which the Armada had to sail through, they could
have suffered a worse fate, [and] that their misfortune was not greater
is thanks to the pious and ceaseless prayers sent to heaven for their
successful return(...)"
Extract from a letter to the Spanish bishops, 1588
English naval victory over the Spanish Armada, engraving, 17th ñ
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Map of the route taken by the
Spanish Armada
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Spanish Armada
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Spanish Armada (Spanish: Grande y Felicísima Armada, "Great and Most
Merry Navy" or Armada Invencible, "Invincible Navy") was the Spanish
fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of
Medina Sidonia in 1588, leading to the Drake–Norris Expedition of 1589,
also known as the English Armada against Spanish possessions in the New
World and against the Atlantic treasure fleets.
King Philip II of Spain had been co-monarch of England until the
death of his wife, Queen Mary I, and he took exception to the policies
pursued by her successor, his sister-in-law Elizabeth I. The aim of his
expedition was to invade and conquer England, thereby suppressing
support for the United Provinces—that part of the Low Countries not
under Spanish domination—and cutting off attacks by the English against
Spanish possessions in the New World and against the Atlantic treasure
fleets. The king was supported by Pope Sixtus V, who treated the
invasion as a crusade, with the promise of a further subsidy should the
Armada make land.
The Armada's appointed commander was the highly experienced Álvaro de
Bazán, but he died in February 1588, and Medina Sidonia took his place.
The fleet set out with 22 warships of the Spanish Royal Navy and 108
converted merchant vessels, with the intention of sailing through the
English Channel to anchor off the coast of Flanders, where the Duke of
Parma's army of tercios would stand ready for an invasion of the
south-east of England.
The Armada achieved its first goal and anchored outside Gravelines,
at the coastal border area between France and the Spanish Netherlands.
While awaiting communications from Parma's army, it was driven from its
anchorage by an English fire ship attack, and in the ensuing battle at
Gravelines the Spanish were forced to abandon their rendezvous with
Parma's army.
The Armada managed to regroup and withdraw north, with the English
fleet harrying it for some distance up the east coast of England. A
return voyage to Spain was plotted, and the fleet sailed into the
Atlantic, past Ireland. But severe storms disrupted the fleet's course,
and more than 24 vessels were wrecked on the north and western coasts of
Ireland, with the survivors having to seek refuge in Scotland. Of the
fleet's initial complement, about 50 vessels failed to make it back to
Spain. The expedition was the largest engagement of the undeclared
Anglo–Spanish War (1585–1604).
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History
Planned invasion of England
Prior to the undertaking, Pope Sixtus V allowed Philip II of Spain to
collect crusade taxes and granted his men indulgences. The blessing of
the Armada's banner on 25 April 1588 was similar to the ceremony used
prior to the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. On 28 May 1588, the Armada set
sail from Lisbon (occupied Portugal), headed for the English Channel.
The fleet was composed of around 130 ships, 8,000 sailors and 18,000
soldiers, and bore 1,500 brass guns and 1,000 iron guns. The full body
of the fleet took two days to leave port. It contained 28 purpose-built
warships: 20 galleons, 4 galleys and 4 galleasses. The remainder of the
heavy vessels consisted mostly of armed carracks and hulks; there were
also 34 light ships present.
In the Spanish Netherlands 30,000 soldiers[9] awaited the arrival of
the armada, the plan being to use the cover of the warships to convey
the army on barges to a place near London. The Spanish had probably
planned to land the soldiers that sailed with the fleet in the west of
England, though this had been explicitly forbidden by Philip. All told,
55,000 men were to have been mustered, a huge army for that time. On the
day the Armada set sail, Elizabeth's ambassador in the Netherlands, Dr
Valentine Dale, met Parma's representatives in peace negotiations, and
the English made a vain effort to intercept the Armada in the Bay of
Biscay.
On 16 July negotiations were abandoned, and the English fleet stood
prepared (although ill-supplied) at Plymouth, awaiting news of Spanish
movements. The Spanish fleet outnumbered the English both in absolute
numbers, with over 200 ships to 130 ships, and in armament as well: its
available firepower was 50% more than that of the English. The English
fleet consisted of the 34 ships of the royal fleet, 24 of which were 200
to 400 tons, and 163 other ships, 30 of which were 200 to 400 tons and
carried up to 42 guns each; 12 of these were privateers owned by Lord
Howard of Effingham, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake.
The Armada was delayed by bad weather, forcing the four galleys and
one galleon to leave the fleet, and was not sighted in England until 19
July, when it appeared off St Michael's Mount in Cornwall. The news was
conveyed to London by a system of beacons that had been constructed all
the way along the south coast. On that evening the English fleet was
trapped in Plymouth harbour by the incoming tide. The Spanish convened a
council of war, where it was proposed to ride into the harbour on the
tide and incapacitate the defending ships at anchor and from there to
attack England; but Medina Sidonia declined to act, choosing to sail to
the east and toward the Isle of Wight. Soon afterwards, 55 English ships
set out in pursuit from Plymouth under the command of Lord Howard of
Effingham, with Sir Francis Drake as Vice Admiral. Howard ceded some
control to Drake, given his experience in battle, and the rear admiral
was Sir John Hawkins.
The next night, in order to execute their "line ahead" attack, the
English tacked upwind of the Armada, thus gaining the weather gage, a
significant advantage. Over the next week there followed two
inconclusive engagements, at Eddystone and the Isle of Portland. Two
Spanish ships, the carrack Rosario and the galleon San Salvador, were
abandoned after having been severely damaged by accidents; they were
taken by the English who thereby captured a large supply of much-needed
gunpowder. At the Isle of Wight the Armada had the opportunity to create
a temporary base in protected waters and wait for word from Parma's
army. In a full-scale attack, the English fleet broke into four groups —
Martin Frobisher now also being given command over a squadron — with
Drake coming in with a large force from the south. At the critical
moment Medina Sidonia sent reinforcements south and ordered the Armada
back to open sea to avoid sandbanks. There were no secure harbours
nearby, so the Armada was compelled to make for Calais, without regard
to the readiness of Parma's army.
On 27 July, the Armada anchored off Calais in a tightly packed
defensive crescent formation, not far from Dunkirk, where Parma's army,
reduced by disease to 16,000, was expected to be waiting, ready to join
the fleet in barges sent from ports along the Flemish coast.
Communications had proven to be far more difficult than anticipated, and
it only now became clear that this army had yet to be equipped with
sufficient transport or assembled in port, a process which would take at
least six days, while Medina Sidonia waited at anchor; and that Dunkirk
was blockaded by a Dutch fleet of thirty flyboats under
Lieutenant-Admiral Justin of Nassau. Parma desired that the Armada send
its light petaches to drive away the Dutch, but Medina Sidonia could not
do this because he feared that he might need these ships for his own
protection. There was no deep-water port where the fleet might shelter —
always acknowledged as a major difficulty for the expedition — and the
Spanish found themselves vulnerable as night drew on. At midnight on 28
July, the English set alight eight fireships, sacrificing regular
warships by filling them with pitch, brimstone, some gunpowder and tar,
and cast them downwind among the closely anchored vessels of the Armada.
The Spanish feared that these uncommonly large fireships were "hellburners",
specialised fireships filled with large gunpowder charges, which had
been used to deadly effect at the Siege of Antwerp. Two were intercepted
and towed away, but the remainder bore down on the fleet. Medina
Sidonia's flagship and the principal warships held their positions, but
the rest of the fleet cut their anchor cables and scattered in
confusion. No Spanish ships were burnt, but the crescent formation had
been broken, and the fleet now found itself too far to leeward of Calais
in the rising south-westerly wind to recover its position. The English
closed in for battle.
Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 8 August 1588 by Loutherbourg d.
J., Philipp Jakob
Battle of Gravelines
The small port of Gravelines was then part of Flanders in the
Spanish Netherlands, close to the border with France and the closest
Spanish territory to England. Medina Sidonia tried to re-form his fleet
there and was reluctant to sail further east knowing the danger from the
shoals off Flanders, from which his Dutch enemies had removed the
sea-marks.
The English had learned more of the Armada's strengths and weaknesses
during the skirmishes in the English Channel and had concluded it was
necessary to close within 100 metres to penetrate the oak hulls of the
Spanish ships. They had spent most of their gunpowder in the first
engagements and had after Wight been forced to conserve their heavy shot
and powder for a final decisive attack near Gravelines. During all the
engagements, the Spanish heavy guns proved unwieldy, and their gunners
had not been trained to reload — in contrast to their English
counterparts, they fired once and then jumped to the rigging to attend
to their main task as marines ready to board enemy ships. In fact,
evidence from Armada wrecks in Ireland shows that much of the fleet's
ammunition was never spent. Their determination to thrash out a victory
in hand-to-hand fighting proved a weakness for the Spanish; it had been
effective on occasions such as the Battle of Lepanto and the Battle of
Ponta Delgada (1582), but the English were aware of this strength and
sought to avoid it by keeping their distance.
With its superior maneuverability, the English fleet provoked Spanish
fire while staying out of range. The English then closed, firing
repeated and damaging broadsides into the enemy ships. This also enabled
them to maintain a position to windward so that the heeling Armada hulls
were exposed to damage below the water line.
Five Spanish ships were lost. The galleass San Lorenzo ran aground at
Calais and was taken by Howard after murderous fighting between the
crew, the galley slaves, the English and the French who ultimately took
possession of the wreck. The galleons San Mateo and San Felipe drifted
away in a sinking condition, ran aground on the island of Walcheren the
next day, and were taken by the Dutch. One carrack ran aground near
Blankenberge; another foundered. Many other Spanish ships were severely
damaged, especially the Spanish and Portuguese Atlantic-class galleons
which had to bear the brunt of the fighting during the early hours of
the battle in desperate individual actions against groups of English
ships. The Spanish plan to join with Parma's army had been defeated, and
the English had afforded themselves some breathing space. But the
Armada's presence in northern waters still posed a great threat to
England.
The Armada in battle with the English Fleet
Tilbury speech
On the day after the battle of Gravelines, the wind had backed
southerly, enabling Medina Sidonia to move his fleet northward away from
the French coast. Although their shot lockers were almost empty, the
English pursued in an attempt to prevent the enemy from returning to
escort Parma. On 2 August Old Style (12 August New Style) Howard called
a halt to the pursuit in the latitude of the Firth of Forth off
Scotland. By that point, the Spanish were suffering from thirst and
exhaustion, and the only option left to Medina Sidonia was to chart a
course home to Spain, by a very hazardous route.
The threat of invasion from the Netherlands had not yet been
discounted by the English, and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester
maintained a force of 4,000 soldiers at West Tilbury, Essex, to defend
the estuary of the River Thames against any incursion up river towards
London.
On 8 August Old Style (18 August New Style) Queen Elizabeth went to
Tilbury to encourage her forces, and the next day gave to them what is
probably her most famous speech:
My loving people, we have been persuaded by some that we are careful
of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes
for fear of treachery; but, I do assure you, I do not desire to live to
distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear, I have always
so behaved myself, that under God I have placed my chiefest strength and
safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects; and,
therefore, I am come amongst you as you see at this time, not for my
recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of
battle, to live or die amongst you all — to lay down for my God, and for
my kingdoms, and for my people, my honour and my blood even in the dust.
I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart
and stomach of a king — and of a king of England too, and think foul
scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to
invade the borders of my realm; to which, rather than any dishonour
should grow by me, I myself will take up arms — I myself will be your
general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.
I know already, for your forwardness, you have deserved rewards and
crowns, and, we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be
duly paid you.
Spanish Armada
Return to Spain
The Armada sailed around Scotland and Ireland into the North
Atlantic. The ships were beginning to show wear from the long voyage,
and some were kept together by having their hulls bundled up with
cables. Supplies of food and water ran short, and the cavalry horses
were cast overboard into the sea. The intention would have been to keep
well to the west of the coast of Scotland and Ireland, in the relative
safety of the open sea. However, there being at that time no way of
accurately measuring longitude, the Spanish were not aware that the Gulf
Stream was carrying them north and east as they tried to move west, and
they eventually turned south much further to the east than planned, a
devastating navigational error. Off the coasts of Scotland and Ireland
the fleet ran into a series of powerful westerly gales, which drove many
of the damaged ships further towards the lee shore. Because so many
anchors had been abandoned during the escape from the English fireships
off Calais, many of the ships were incapable of securing shelter as they
reached the coast of Ireland and were driven onto the rocks. The late
1500s, and especially 1588, were marked by unusually strong North
Atlantic storms, perhaps associated with a high accumulation of polar
ice off the coast of Greenland, a characteristic phenomenon of the
"Little Ice Age." As a result many more ships and sailors were lost to
cold and stormy weather than in combat.
Following the gales it is reckoned that 5,000 men died, whether by
drowning and starvation or by slaughter at the hands of English forces
after they were driven ashore in Ireland; only half of the Spanish
Armada fleet returned back home to Spain. Reports of the passage around
Ireland abound with strange accounts of brutality and survival and
attest to the qualities of the Spanish seamanship. Some survivors were
concealed by Irish people, but few shipwrecked Spanish survived to be
taken into Irish service, fewer still to return home. In the end, 67
ships and around 10,000 men survived. Many of the men were near death
from disease, as the conditions were very cramped and most of the ships
ran out of food and water. Many more died in Spain, or on hospital ships
in Spanish harbours, from diseases contracted during the voyage. It was
reported that, when Philip II learned of the result of the expedition,
he declared, "I sent the Armada against men, not God's winds and waves".
Greatly disappointed, he still forgave the Duke of Medina Sidonia.
Defeat of the Spanish Armada
Aftermath
English losses were comparatively few, and none of their ships were
sunk. But after the victory, typhus, dysentery and hunger killed many
sailors and troops (estimated at 6,000–8,000) as they were discharged
without pay: a demoralising dispute occasioned by the government's
fiscal shortfalls left many of the English defenders unpaid for months,
which was in contrast to the assistance given by the Spanish government
to its surviving men.
Although the English fleet was unable to prevent the regrouping of
the Armada at the Battle of Gravelines, requiring it to remain on duty
even as thousands of its sailors died, the outcome vindicated the
strategy adopted, resulting in a revolution in naval warfare with the
promotion of gunnery, which until then had played a supporting role to
the tasks of ramming and boarding. The battle of Gravelines is regarded
by specialists in military history as reflecting a lasting shift in the
naval balance in favour of the English, in part because of the gap in
naval technology and armament it confirmed between the two nations,
which continued into the next century. In the words of Geoffrey Parker,
by 1588 'the capital ships of the Elizabethan navy constituted the most
powerful battle fleet afloat anywhere in the world.' However after its
defeat in the Armada campaign the Spanish Navy also underwent a major
organisational reform that helped it to maintain control over its own
home waters and ocean routes well into the next century.
In England, the boost to national pride lasted for years, and
Elizabeth's legend persisted and grew long after her death. The repulse
of Spanish naval might gave heart to the Protestant cause across Europe,
and the belief that God was behind the Protestant cause was shown by the
striking of commemorative medals that bore the inscription, He blew with
His winds, and they were scattered. There were also more lighthearted
medals struck, such as the one with the play on Julius Caesar's words:
Venit, Vidit, Fugit (he came, he saw, he fled). The victory was
acclaimed by the English as their greatest since Agincourt.
However, an attempt to press home the English advantage failed the
following year, when a comparable English fleet sailed for Portugal and
the Azores in 1589. The Norris–Drake Expedition or English Armada limped
home after failing to co-ordinate its strategy effectively with the
Portuguese.
High seas buccaneering and the supply of troops to Philip II's
enemies in the Netherlands and France continued, but brought few
tangible rewards for England. The Anglo-Spanish War dragged on to a
stalemate that left Spanish power in Europe and the Americas largely
intact.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
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