The Cause of God

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 902, 16 November 1956, Page 18

The Cause of God

7B Sunday Showcase offered a fascinating programme last week, The Enterprise of England, an account of the Spanish Armada made up entirely from contemporary letters, diaries and State papers. I had no idea that this decisive engagement was so well documented, but it is, point by point. We can hear Philip of Spain giving his orders to his reluctant Admiral, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, premier grandee of Spain, but as he confessed to his sovereign, no soldier, and perilously prone to seasickness. The enterprise, nakedly imperialist in motive, was represented to the thousands embarking from the Tagus as the Cause of God. Striking tparallels occur, do they not? The Armada set sail, dogged by bad weather, but arrived finally in the Channel, and here fought out the engagement on the lines familiar to us from our history books. Interesting sidelights on _ it, which histories omit, are the rivalry between the testy Frobisher and the volatile Drake, who lived warmly in this (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) programme, by his robust imagery; describing the English ships as "like to some women in full belly, showing little but concealing much armament." A diary note of the time, after the Armada was scattered and some ships wrecked off Irelarid, records that "this day, Saturday, ordered one thousand Spanish survivors to be put to the sword; Sunday, I passed in prayers and thanks to my God." This admirable documentary made history vivid and actual by ignoring the common impulse to make the enterprise merely glorious; if glory is there, so equally are blood, toil, tears

and sweat.

B. E. G.

M.