Correcting History

Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor, and Philip II, King of Spain, cousins in the Habsburg family, were educated together as children in Spain. Same tutors, same library. When they grew up, Rudolph II was extremely tolerant religiously. He said, "I am not a Catholic or a Lutheran, I am a Christian." But Muslims and Jews were also welcome in his court, if they had talent and/or brains. 

Philip, on the other hand, is thought of, at least in the English-speaking world, as representing the most intolerant form of Catholicism. Elizabeth and the English defeated the Spanish Armada, striking a huge  blow for freedom.

 

That's the way we hear about it in English-speaking parts of the world. 

We learn that the only time in his life Philip smiled was when heard of the St Batholomew's Day Massacre in France, when 70,000 Protestants were killed in France, and most of the rest fled the country.

Except that it was probably less than 5,000. Many Protestants had to flee France. But by no means all of them. Still very bad, but not what we learn. And the part about Philip smiling for the only time in his life when he heard about it -- I'm thinking that might be bullshit too. I'm thinking it's entirely possible that he felt very BAD about a huge massacre, even if it was a huge massacre of Protestants. 

And the part about the defeat of the Spanish Armada being a great victory for freedom -- Catholics didn't get civil rights in England for another 200 years. And they didn't get FULL civil rights until even later than that. Spain, horrible repression, vs England, glorious freedom -- that's just one example of the huge whoppers we are taught about the Tudor dynasty and the world around it.

Just the same way that George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree or threw a silver dollar across the Potomac. We know now that Parson Weems made that up, and a lot of other things which were considered true for a very long time.

History is imperfect. We keep working on improving its accuracy and insight.

The Battle Of Lepanto And The Sinking Of The Spanish Armada

I wonder how many of you have heard of one of the events mentioned in this post's title and not the other. In 1571 the combined naval forces of Spain, the Pope and Venice scored a great and unexpected victory over the navy of the Ottoman Empire in the Gulf of Patras in the Ionian Sea. 17 years later, in 1588, the same Spanish navy, the dreaded Spanish Armada, suffered a great and unexpected defeat at the hands of the English navy when they attempted to invade England.

Both events have been written about at great length, but what strikes me is that, to the best of my recollection, I have never heard them mentioned in the same breath, as I am doing now. Garrett Mattingly's The Armada, an above-average book about the 1588 battle,



has 3 entries in its index under "Lepanto, battle of," but 2 of those references merely mention that Don Juan of Austria and the Marquis of Santa Cruz had been at Lepanto, and that Sultan Selim II had spoken disparagingly of the battle's significance. Mattingly actually says nothing at all himself about the battle.

The I Tatti Renaissance Library recently published an entire volume of poems in Latin written shortly after the battle of Lepanto and celebrating the Christian victory,



and nowhere in the poems, the index or introduction or well over 100 pages of notes about the battle and its background and significance is any English man or woman mentioned, let alone Elizabeth I, let alone the sinking of the Armada.

I thought that surely HG Wells, in his great 1-volume history of Earth, The Outline of History,



would prove an exception and discuss both battles. But no. And more surprisingly still, the battle he mentions is Lepanto. Maybe he was deliberately thumbing his nose at those of his countrymen who in his estimation went on and on at entirely too much length about the supposed significance for world history of the sinking of the Armada.

Which brings me meandering roundabout to my point: some historians have written at great length about either Lepanto or the sinking of the Armada, either because they felt that it was of great significance in world history, or that its significance had been greatly exaggerated by historians. Either one battle or the other -- and the other was barely worth a mention.

Surely many Spanish sailors and soldiers must have been in both battles, just 17 years apart. Surely they, if no-one else, often thought of both battles at the same time, and considered them to have some connection to each other. Such sailors and soldiers were themselves an obvious connection.

But individual historians have rarely -- if ever -- felt that both battles were worth writing about. Which is my point: the great subjectivity of decisions about what is "historically significant." Surely the treatment by historians of these 2 battles shines a very great light on the fact that objectivity is an illusion. Historians write about what is significant from the point of view of the entire world? No, they cultivate myths of significance. If they are especially sympathetic to Catholicism and/or Spain, they nurture the myth of the significance of Lepanto, they talk up the glorious nature of the Catholic, or Spanish (or Venetian, or Papal) victory, and don't mention the Spanish defeat in 1588. But if they happen to think that England is particularly glorious, they support that preconception by dwelling on the sinking of the Armada, and by making it seem as glorious as they can.

Objectivity, schmobjetivity. There is no such thing. Research these 2 battles and you will be shown objectivity's nonexistence in a particularly striking way.