The Great Storm

This week on 24 November sees the anniversary of the official celebration of the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. That defeat, put down mostly to the superb seamanship and gunnery skills of the Navy but the great storm was the decisive factor, scattering the Spanish fleet and forcing it to get home around Scotland.

These last two weeks we have witnessed some dreadful storms and flooding in Britain, even the channel port of Dover was closed due to the heavy seas. If a modern ship with engines and stabilisers could not manage the rough channel what would it have been like in a Spanish Galleon relying on sails and oars for motive power?

The Armada was becalmed for a while off the Sussex coast near Fairlight, finally sailing away on the 27th July. People of a Puritan cast of mind in Sussex at this time were naming their children with rigorously uplifting names. On July 28th with the Armada sailing away William Durrant and his wife of Warlbleton took their son to church and christened him Bethankfull and four days later Thomas and Mary Holman christened their son Preserved.

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