Book description
'Continual, destruction in the foretop, the pox above board, the
plague between decks, hell in the forecastle and the devil at the helm.'
It is the summer of 1588, and the fate and future of England hangs
in the balance. Obsessed by the dream of reclaiming England for the
Catholic Church - and adding another country to his sprawling
dominions - Philip II of Spain has assembled a fleet of huge,
castle-crowned galleons that stretches for miles across the face of
the ocean. In wait in the Netherlands lies a battle-hardened Spanish
army, ferocious professionals with a taste for rape, looting and atrocity.
Across the Channel the English are scraping together bands of barely
trained men, many armed only with scythes, stakes or longbows. Great
warning beacons stand all along the coast of England; torches and
kindling lie to hand. Watchmen strain their eyes to see over the
horizon. Their only hope lies in the English Navy.
But Philip's Armada is doomed before it even leaves port. As soon as
it engages with the English fleet, its shortcomings are clear in the
face of superior tactics and firepower. Its hulls shot through with
cannon fire, its men dying in thousands from wounds and disease, the
mightiest fleet ever assembled is mercilessly harried into fleeing
north, at the mercy of the elements. Over forty Spanish ships are
wrecked on the Irish coast; survivors crawling ashore have their
throats slit and their purses ransacked. The dream of subduing the
Protestant English lies in tatters.
A triumphant combination of historical detail and storytelling
flair, THE CONFIDENT HOPE OF A MIRACLE draws on undiscovered and
little known personal papers and records to tell the epic story of the
Spanish Armada in all its scope. No book has ever conveyed in such
vivid, living detail how kings, queens and courtiers, sea captains,
deckhands and galley slaves, the highest and the lowest in the land,
fared in those turbulent months as the fate of England teetered on the brink.
Neil Hanson is the author of many acclaimed works of narrative
history including
The Custom of the Sea
,
The Dreadful Judgement, The Confident Hope of a Miracle
and
The Unknown Soldier
. He lives in Yorkshire with his family.
