Talk:Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1657)

Inconsistencies

There appear to be some contradictory elements in this article.

• The final paragraph of the 'Aftermath' section seems to repeat much of the preceding paragraph, though it attributes the successful withdrawal to the wind, something that was dismissed in the final paragraph of the 'Battle' section, where it describes the ships as having warped out, and the wind story to be based on a misinterpretation.
• Is Blake's flagship the George, or St George?
• Some sentences like 'the rewards justly due to the unparalleled skill and bravery of Blake were wrested from him by death' seem to be archaic in their phrasing. If they are quotes, they ought to be formatted as such, or else reworded (or removed as redundant) to maintain an encyclopaedic tone.
• Is it Richard Stayner or Steyner? A quick search shows 'Stayner' to be the most prevalent form, and this is the one used in his entry in the ODNB for example. Benea (talk) 22:42, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Steynar has different spellings but Samuel Pepys calls him Stayner so we will stick with that and is corrected as such. I was having trouble with the ship George (which was a 60 gun ship) in trying to locate more info on it but it seems there is very little. The Speaker on the other hand there is plenty as it was called HMS Mary. It would seem that George was in fact HMS St George so will correct that also. I will also remove the sentence that you mentioned with regards to Blake's death. Bruich (talk) 01:15, 116 August 2010 (GMT)

Thanks for clarifying this, the article is looking in good shape now. I had suspected as much with regards to the George. HMS St Andrew (1622) for example was renamed Andrew during the Commonwealth period, but reverted to her original name after the Restoration. Benea (talk) 06:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The names of the ships built in 1622 as the Saint Andrew and Saint George were altered by the new Commonwealth government in 1650 to simply Andrew and George, and remained as such until the Restoration in 1660, when the "Saint" part of each name was officially restored (see my British Warships in the Age of Sail 1603-1714). Therefore it would be wrong to use the "Saint" name in 1657. Rif Winfield (talk) 09:28, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Is John Barrat a reliable source?

I have noticed that around half of the references of this article are come from two books by a certain John Barrat. I have attempted to check the credentials of this author but what I have found has left me uneasy:

• In the site of Historical Naval Fiction he is described as "a freelance military historian".
• In the Historical Writers Association he calls himself a "some-time civil servant and librarian" with a "life-long interest in history, especially that of the 17th century" with three books on the English Civil War.

With all respect to Mr Barrat, he seems to be an amateur writer without formal training in history. His being mentioned in a historical fiction forum does not reassure me either. I wonder if he draws on a sufficiently broad range of sources, and how he critically assesses them. In particular when writing about wars, it is important to consult sources from all sides involved, not only from older English texts as I have the impression that Mr Barrat tends to do. --Hispalois (talk) 12:59, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

What seems to be the issue here? I've noticed recent edits by an IP user trying to change the result of the battle. Eastfarthingan (talk) 15:12, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I am not talking about that. What worries me is that Barrat is the only reference for statements like "[Blake] captured another five which were later destroyed" whereas other sources only mention one capture which Blake insisted on not towing out of the port. Barrat is apparently also the source for calling Santa Cruz "one of Spain's strongest harbours", which I find hard to believe when I think of truly strong harbours like Cádiz, Cartagena or Cartagena de Indias. Barrat also claims that "an invasion of Portugal had to be abandoned [by Spain] as a result", which is at odds with what contemporary Spanish sources say. And it goes on.

Those problematic statements should be checked against more reliable sources i.e. works by trained historians who have properly compiled and analized primary sources. --Hispalois (talk) 11:55, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

If this is a problem then I would happy to remove or reword those sentences. For the capture of the five ships there are a number of sources which state this and Blake subsequently orders them burned. Next perhaps we can say 'heavily defended harbour' instead of "one of Spain's strongest harbours", then we can leave out the Portuguese invasion as it is more of a consequence of the Cadiz blockade than the battle itself. Hope this helps? Eastfarthingan (talk) 13:51, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes please, that would be great. --Hispalois (talk) 09:39, 10 October 2019 (UTC)