FORCES OF NATURE · 1588 · THE ENGLISH CHANNEL
The Protestant wind never blows
August 1588. The Spanish Armada, mauled off Gravelines and saved from the Flemish shoals, is about to be driven north into the storms England will thank God for and name the Protestant wind. This is the timeline where the wind lies down instead, and a flat calm settles over the barges of Parma's waiting army.
You are reading the timeline that almost was · notes marked THE RECORD are real history
9 AUG 1588 · DAWN
For a year, Philip II of Spain has prepared the Enterprise of England. His Armada of one hundred and thirty ships is to sail up the Channel and ferry the Duke of Parma's veteran army from Flanders to Kent. On the night of 7 August, English fireships drift into the anchored fleet off Calais. The Spanish cut their cables and scatter, losing nearly every anchor they own. The next day, off Gravelines, English guns batter them for nine hours. Now a rising northwest wind is pushing the crippled fleet toward the shoals of the Zeeland Banks, and it has no anchors left to hold.
In the timeline recorded here, the wind falls still. The northwest gale that should rise instead dies to nothing. By full light the Channel lies flat as poured glass, and the Armada floats unharmed above the banks that would have broken it.
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