the English and the weather

We may grumble at a few spots of rain, but the weather has saved our nation more times than we realise

There was a documentary on TV recently, a dumbed-down life of Queen Elizabeth 1st, aired by Channel 5. It devoted just a few minutes to the threatened invasion of Britain by the Spanish Armada in 1588 and gave the sole reason for its defeat as the efforts of Francis Drake. Almost as an afterthought, they concluded with the words, “then the ships were blown northwards”.

What actually happened was very different. Even Wikipedia concedes that the reasons for the defeat was a combination of mismanagement by the King of Spain, Drake’s military prowess and unfortunate weather. It’s on the latter point that I wish to focus and we find two key episodes in the battle where the weather was a determining factor.

Firstly, the Armada was delayed by bad weather and unfavourable wind directions. Storms reduced the number of ships sailing from 130 down to 123 and this gave the British forces some breathing time to organise themselves properly. The main battle was later fought in the North Sea and raged until both sides ran out of ammunition and the English were able to return safely home. Not so the Spanish, as the wind blew their ships northwards around Scotland, where a fierce storm (apparently one of the worst ever experienced in that region) blew them round the west of Ireland, losing 26 ships and over 5,000 men. By the time they had returned to Spain they had lost almost 20,000 men as a result of the whole doomed enterprise.

Queen Elizabeth was ecstatic. The storm that had saved them was later called the Protestant Wind and she had a commemorative medal made, with the words “He blew with His winds and they were scattered.” On the front of the medal are those exact words accompanied by a scene of ships on a stormy sea. On the reverse side is a church, a Protestant church, unmoved by the storm, with the words, “I am assailed, but not injured.” The King of Spain was less happy and his religious leaders were at a loss to explain why God brought defeat to the mighty Armada. They finally decided that it was their punishment for taking too long to evict the Islamic invaders from Spain in the previous century!

The defeat of the Armada was far more historically significant than many of us realise. It actually changed the course of European history. If the Spanish had invaded, Queen Elizabeth’s reign would have come to a premature end and Britain would have become a Catholic nation and the World would probably not have seen the rise of the British Empire. With that in mind one can see why God intervened in the way that He did to ensure victory and it is significant that the British people, from the Queen down, acknowledged this fact.

A fine day for an invasion …

Exactly a hundred years later, in 1688, we find England in a similar, but also very different, situation. The incumbent king was King James II. He was of the Stuart dynasty, the Tudor reign having ended at the death of the childless Queen Elizabeth. He was also a Catholic and seemed intent on steering back the country to the ‘old religion’. That year he produced an heir and it was clear to the Protestant nobles that a Catholic dynasty was in the making and something had to be done about it! So they sent word over the channel to the Dutch Prince William of Orange, who was a Protestant and also the King’s sonin-law (and nephew) to intervene. That year William launched an armada twice as large as the Spanish one of the previous Century. But there was a significant difference. This time the weather was in their favour, despite it being November, when weather can be very unpredictable. The Dutch fleet originally sailed north, but a gale blew it towards the southwest, then the wind changed to enable it to land at Torbay without fuss. Meanwhile the British fleet was in the wrong place, in the Southeast and the same winds that helped the Dutch, hindered the British from arriving swiftly to Torbay. The invasion succeeded because “vagaries of the channel winds… made impossible a meeting between the antagonists, and… completely assured the Dutch success” (The English Navy in the Revolution of 1688, Powley, p. 94).

Here’s how Wikipedia reported on proceedings: “William intended to land at Torbay but due to fog the fleet sailed past it by mistake. The wind made a return impossible and Plymouth was unsuitable as it had a garrison. At this point, with the English fleet in pursuit, Russell told Burnet: “You may go to prayers, Doctor. All is over”. At that moment however the wind changed and the fog lifted, enabling the fleet to sail into Torbay, near Brixham, Devon. William came ashore on November. When Burnet was ashore he hastened to William and eagerly enquired what William now intended to do. William regarded the interference in military matters by non-military personnel with disgust but he was in good humour at this moment and responded with a delicate reproof: “Well, Doctor, what do you think of predestination now?” The English squadron under Lord Dartmouth was forced by the same change in wind to shelter in Portsmouth harbour. During the next two days William’s army disembarked in calm weather.”

A Protestant wind had again been significant and the invasion of our isles was seen in a positive light, so much that it has gone down in history as the Glorious Revolution. James fled the country, being replaced by his Protestant daughter, Mary, who reigned with William.

Stuck in the mud

Moving on to the nineteenth Century we find Britain yet again in peril against its enemies. This time it was France. We find ourselves at that other fixture in the English timeline of significant battles, Waterloo. It was June 1815 and it was the heavyweight bout, Napoleon vs. Wellington, with the fate of Europe dependent on the outcome.

The battlefield was just south of Brussels (not South London!) and this bloody skirmish was to wound or take the lives of over 70,000 men.

The Duke of Wellington held the high ground, which gave him a needed advantage as they were well outnumbered by the French army. Napoleon had to wrap it up by nightfall because Prussian reinforcements were on their way for the English. So, what was the problem? Why did Napoleon not launch an immediate attack? The weather or, to be more specific, a lot of rain!

Torrential rain had fallen the night before and the French troops bore the brunt of it, their tents not sufficient protection against a real good soaking. Also, the ground was a quagmire and it was this that delayed Napoleon’s attack, as it was difficult to move his men into position and his cannons needed hard ground to function efficiently, to be able to move them swiftly and to aid the flight of the cannonballs, that often did their main damage after bouncing along the ground. So he waited until midday, which gave time for the Prussians to arrive and the battle swung against him and he was defeated, resulting in the end of his dreams of Empire and personal exile for him.

Even Victor Hugo spoke of this in Les Misérables, Chapter 3. Here the commentator says: “If it had not rained in the night between the 17th and the 18th of June, 1815, the fate of Europe would have been different. A few drops of water, more or less, decided the downfall of Napoleon. All that Providence required in order to make Waterloo the end of Austerlitz was a little more rain, and a cloud traversing the sky out of season sufficed to make a world crumble.”

There are also eye-witness accounts. Here, from the British side, Private William Wheeler of the 51st Kings Infantry comments, “… as it began to rain the road soon became very heavy… the rain increased, the thunder and lightning approached nearer, and with it came the enemy…the rain beating with violence, the guns roaring, repeated bright flashes of lightning attended with tremendous volleys of Thunder that shook the very earth…”

So weather conditions, fully under the authority of God and within His personal arsenal, were a key factor in this pivotal battle, something that even secular military historians acknowledge.

When He thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. (Jeremiah 10:13)

It cannot be stressed enough just how pivotal this battle was. Waterloo was seen afterwards as a turning point in history, something that ushered in a period of peace, prosperity and progress until the Crimean War, followed by the First World War in the subsequent century.

So, in summary, perhaps three of the greatest victories in history, where defeat would have changed the spiritual climate of Europe for the worst, each bore the evidence of the Hand of God, through His manipulation of the elements.

But there was an even greater victory to come … (to be continued).