The Midnight of Eights, Guest Post by Justin Newland

1580.

Nelan Michaels docks at Plymouth after sailing around the world aboard the Golden Hind. He seeks only to master his mystical powers – the mark of the salamander, that mysterious spirit of fire – and reunite with his beloved Eleanor.

After delivering a message to Francis Walsingham, he’s recruited into the service of the Queen’s spymaster, where his astral abilities help him to predict and thwart future plots against the realm.

But in 1588, the Spanish Armada threatens England’s shores.

So how could the fledgling navy of a small, misty isle on the edge of mainland Europe repulse the greatest fleet in the world? Was the Queen right when she claimed it was divine intervention, saying, ‘He blew with His winds, and they were scattered!’?

Or was it an entirely different intervention – the extraordinary conjunction of coincidences that Nelan’s astral powers brought to bear on that fateful Midnight of Eights?

Guest Post: The Spanish Armada

The Spanish word Armada means fleet of warships. It certainly was.

In 1588, King Philip of Spain assembled 130 vessels in Cadiz to invade England and depose Elizabeth. Philip’s strategy was to transport an 18,000 strong invasion force from Cadiz to the Netherlands, where they would pick up the Duke of Alba’s battle-hardened troops, and ferry them across the English Channel and overthrow Elizabeth.

When the Armada set sail in July 1588, Spain was at the zenith of her power and closely allied to the might of the Catholic Church. The massive galleons were virtual floating fortresses, but these square-rigged vessels could only sail with the wind at their back. The English had recently developed smaller ships that could sail closer to the wind (i.e. they didn’t need the wind at their back to proceed forward).

At dawn on 29^th July, 1588, Captain Fleming of The Golden Hind spotted the massed ranks of the Armada off the Scilly Isles. He sailed back to Plymouth to inform Howard, Hawkins and Drake, and famously interrupted their game of bowls on the Hoe.

Unbeknown to the English, the Spanish had no intention of attacking any of the English south coast ports, and sailed along past the Isle of Wight, followed all the way on the cliff tops by crowds of fearful and excited peasants.

The Armada was arranged with the larger and slower ships in the middle, the faster ships on the horns. This crescent formation made it difficult for the English to engage the Spanish and so the latter were obliged to attack at speed and use their long-range guns, but this proved ineffective against the thick-hulled Spanish vessels.

By the time the Armada anchored off Calais on 7^th August, their ships mostly remained intact, with only a few stragglers picked off by the increasingly-desperate English. The two fleets were moored so close to each other they could hear the shouts of their opponents.

That night was a full moon, a heavy doleful Harvest moon no less. The English prepared fire ships of pitch, wood and tar. The cannon were stuffed with flammable material to create huge explosions. The marine tactic was well-known to the Spanish as well, so their commander prepared ships to intercept the Hellburners aka the fire ships.

At midnight on the night of the 7^th/8^th August, 1588, the English despatched 8 fireships downwind into the massed ranks of the Armada. Instead of retreating in an orderly fashion, the Spanish panicked, cut their anchor chains and fled into the night.

The next day saw the two fleets unleash repeated salvos of cannon fire, as they met head on for the first time at the Battle of Gravelines, a small town just north of Calais. Despite having the upper hand, Howard and Drake were forced to prematurely call off the attack due to shortage of shot and powder.

The Spanish fled north, the English fleet in full sail following behind them.

Then, four days later, on 12^th August, the barrel man spotted heads bobbing in the flow behind the Spanish vessels. What were they? Had they thrown men overboard? Was it a mutiny? No, the heads turned out to be horses. Scores of them. When Drake and Howard saw this, they called off the chase, turned and set sail for Deptford and for home. The Spanish had given up any hope of invading England’s shores. That was why they had jettisoned their horses. Also, it meant that the Spanish no longer had the supplies to feed them.

The Armada was defeated. The ragged ships sailed north around the coast of Scotland.

On 19^th August, Elizabeth rode into the camp set up on the Thames at Tilbury adorned in a silver breast plate over a white velvet dress and a truncheon in her hand. In a famous address, she spoke to the troops, “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm: to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms.”

On the same day, the Spanish fleet, desperate for food, bought fish from a fisherman somewhere between Shetland and Orkney in north Scotland.

A couple of days later, four days of storms ship-wrecked more Spanish vessels on the Irish coast. Their decision to cut their anchor chains meant that they could not safely anchor anywhere, forever bound to motion with the flow.

The greatest fleet in the world was humbled by winds and storms, and eventually limped home during the Autumn, having lost 60 ships and suffered 15,000 casualties.

On 22^nd September Elizabeth struck an Armada medal with the inscription Flavit Jehovah et Dissipati Sunt which means Jehovah blew with His winds, and they were scattered.

To this day, the wind that scattered the Armada is known as the Protestant Wind.

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Meet Justin Newland

Justin Newland’s novels represent an innovative blend of genres from historical adventure to supernatural thriller and magical realism. His stories explore the themes of war and religion, and speculate on the human’s spiritual place in the universe. Undeterred by the award of a Doctorate in Mathematics from Imperial College, London, he conceived his debut novel, The Genes of Isis (Matador, 2018), an epic fantasy set under Ancient Egyptian skies.

The historical thriller, The Old Dragon’s Head (Matador, 2018), is set in Ming Dynasty China in the shadows of the Great Wall. The Coronation (Matador, 2019) was another historical adventure and speculates on the genesis of the most important event in the modern world – the Industrial Revolution. The Abdication (Matador, 2021) is a mystery thriller in which a young woman confronts her faith in a higher purpose and what it means to abdicate that faith. The Mark of the Salamander (Book Guild, 2023) is the first in a two-book series, The Island of Angels. Set in the Elizabethan era, it’s an epic tale of England’s coming of age. His work in progress is the second in the series, The Midnight of Eights, the charting of the uncanny coincidences that led to the repulse of the Spanish Armada.

Author, speaker and broadcaster, Justin appears on LitFest panels, gives talks to historical associations and libraries and enjoys giving radio interviews and making podcasts. Born three days before the end of 1953, he lives with his partner in plain sight of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England.