A libell of Spanish lies — A Reader’s Guide

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Authors: Savile, Henry, Captain, Delgadillo de Avellaneda, Bernaldino, 1544-1629 [Contributor] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2023 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Drake, Francis, approximately 1540-1596 -- Death and burial; Delgadillo de Avellaneda, Bernaldino, 1544-1629; Isle of Pines, Battle of the, Cuba, 1596 -- Personal narratives Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 10,260

Reading time 45 min

Text sections 10

Before opening A libell of Spanish lies — A Reader’s Guide, the edition data offers a quick orientation: 10,260 words, 45 min estimated reading time, and 10 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 38.9 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Drake, Francis, approximately 1540-1596 -- Death and burial,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #71057

Captain Henry Savile's 1596 pamphlet refutes Spanish claims about the Battle of the Isle of Pines and Drake's death, exposing deliberate misnaming and exaggeration through sarcastic, forensic rebuttal.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

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File: pg71057

Read the Text

This book is a faithful reproduction of the original book printed around 1600, including all the printing errors of that edition, and this etext maintains that careful reproduction. No spelling or punctuation corrections have been made, and minimal spacing adjustments have been made, in order to preserve the historical value of the original work.

The diacritical ~ (tilde) mark is sometimes used in this book on the letters a, e, o, u and q. These will display, using the Unicode combining tilde diacritical, on this device as: ã, ẽ, õ, ũ, q̃.

The long-s ſ has been replaced by s throughout the etext.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

The subsequent facsimile is made from the original in the possession of the donor.

Only five copies of it appear to be known: three of these are in public libraries, and two of the three are more or less imperfect: one of them wants four pages, and of the other some of the marginal notes have been cut away, and a portion of a leaf destroyed.

The contents, besides their value in an historical point of view, are of interest in reference to the biographies of two such men as Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins, both of whom perished in the course of the enterprise to which the pamphlet relates.

Sacke of Cales, discoursing the fight in the West INDIES, twixt the English Nauie being fourteene Ships and Pinasses, and a fleete of twentie saile of the king of Spaines, and of the death of _Sir Francis Drake_.

With an answere briefely confuting the Spanish lies, and a short Relation of the fight according to truth, written by _Henrie Sauile_ Esquire, employed Captaine in one of her Maiesties Shippes, in the same seruice against the Spaniard.

And also an Approbation of this discourse, by Sir _Thomas Baskeruile_, then Generall of the English fleete in that seruice: Auowing the maintenance thereof, personally in Armes against _Don Bernaldino_, if hee shall take exceptions to that which is heere set downe,

Touching the fight twixt both Nauies, or iustifie that which he hath most falsely reported in his vaine Printed letter.

_A false witnes shall not bee vnpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish._

Printed by _Iohn Windet_, dwelling by Pauls Wharfe at the signe of the Crosse Keyes, and are there to be solde. 1596.

TO THE COVR- teous Reader.

_WHereas_, DON BERNALDINO DELGADILLO de AVELLANEDA, _Generall of the Spanish fleete, hath by his Printed letters published to the worlde diuers vntruthes, concerning our fleete and the Commaunders thereof, seeking therby his owne glorie, and our disgrace; I haue taken vpon me (though of many least able) to confute the same, the rather for that the printed Coppie came first into my hands, hauing my selfe beene Captaine of one of her Maiesties shippes in the same voyage: Take this therfore (gentle Reader) as a token of my dutie and loue to my Countrie and Countrie-men, And expect onely a plaine truth, as from the pen of a Souldier, and Nauigator: Which if you take in good parte, may draw me shortly to a greater labour, by publishing vnto you our whole voyage._

THe true Coppie of a letter found at the sacking of Cales, written by _Don Bernaldino Delgadillo de Avellaneda_, Generall of the king of Spaine his Nauie in the west _Indies_, sent vnto Doctor _Peter Flores_, President of the Contraction house for the _Indies_, and by him put in Print, with priueledge: wherein is declared manye vntruthes, and false reports, tending to the disgrace of the seruice of her Maiesties Nauie, and the Commaunders thereof, lately sent to the west _Indies_, vnder the Commaund of _Sir Frances Drake_, and _Sir Iohn Hawkins_ Generals at the Sea; and S_ir Thomas Baskeruile_ Generall at land: with a confutation of diuers grosse lies and vntruthes, contayned in the same letter: together with a short relation of the fight according to the truth.

_COPIA DE VNA Carta, q̃ embio Don Bernaldino Delgadillo de Auellaneda, General de la Armada de su Magestad, embiada al Doctor Pedro Florez Presidente de la casa de la Contratacion de las Yndias, en que trata del sucesso de la Armada de Ynglaterra, despues que pattio de Panama, de que fue por general Francisco Draque, y de su muerte._

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Captain Henry Savile opens his 1596 pamphlet not with a narrative of battle but with a philological quarrel: the Spanish general Don Bernaldino Delgadillo de Avellaneda has misnamed the English commander, calling him 'Quebraran' instead of Baskerville. Savile seizes on this error as proof of a 'forge & storehouse of lyes,' and the entire text becomes a point-by-point dismantling of a printed Spanish letter found at the sack of Cadiz. The pamphlet is less a battle report than a courtroom cross-examination, where word choice and numerical consistency are the weapons.

The Weapon of a Wrong Name

Savile devotes his opening pages to the name 'Quebraran,' which he calls 'straunge, and vnknowne to any in the English Nauie.' He argues that no Englishman, when asked his general's name, would produce a word with 'no affinitie at all' to Baskerville. The error is not merely comic but strategic: it allows Savile to question the credibility of every subsequent Spanish claim. He invokes the scholastic proverb 'Barnardus non videt omnia' to suggest that Bernaldino, like his namesake, is blind to the truth. The name itself becomes a synecdoche for the entire Spanish account—fabricated, self-serving, and easily refuted by anyone who was actually present.

Numbers Under Scrutiny

Savile treats Spanish figures as arithmetic puzzles. Don Bernaldino claims to have taken 140 men and 15 noble captains; Savile retorts that 'the fifteene noble Captaines according the generals lying occupation, will proue but three.' He does not simply deny the numbers—he predicts that when the Spanish produce their prisoners, the count will shrink. The same skepticism applies to the 'good Shippe well manned' supposedly abandoned by the English. Savile explains that the ship had been separated by weather thirteen days before the fight and 'neuer to anye mans knowledge came more in sight of the English fleete.' The Spanish, he implies, have claimed a distressed vessel as a prize of war, inflating a chance encounter into a victory.

The Rhetoric of Stretched Leather

Savile's prose is deliberately earthy and physical. He describes the Spanish general as a man who 'doth stretch the Leather with his teeth that it is ready to breake' to make small matters seem great. The image belongs to a craftsman's world—shoemaking—and it grounds the abstract charge of exaggeration in tangible, almost violent effort. Elsewhere, he calls the Spanish account 'a little shoe to serue a great foote.' This consistent metaphor of ill-fitting, forced fabrication runs through the pamphlet, giving it a unifying verbal texture. Savile does not merely accuse; he makes the act of lying visible as a kind of manual labor, clumsy and unsustainable.

The Witness of the Page

Savile repeatedly appeals to the physical evidence of the printed letter itself. He notes that the Spanish general 'hath by his Printed letters' made his claims, and that the printing 'doth shame the General' when the text is examined. The pamphlet is framed as a direct response to a document—a material object found at Cadiz—and Savile treats the letter as a piece of evidence that can be held up and dissected. He also invokes Sir Thomas Baskerville's personal 'Approbation,' in which the general offers to maintain the truth of Savile's account 'personally in Armes against Don Bernaldino.' This threat of physical combat underscores that the dispute is not merely literary but a matter of honor and national reputation.

Readers should approach A libell of Spanish lies as a specimen of Elizabethan polemic, where truth is established through ridicule, arithmetic, and the careful examination of a single printed page. Savile's method—forensic, sarcastic, and relentlessly specific—offers a model for reading any contested historical account. The pamphlet does not provide a full battle narrative; it provides a lesson in how to spot a lie by its language.

What struck me about Savile’s pamphlet was how quietly he untangles a lie, piece by piece, until the truth feels almost lonely. That same ache followed me through The Nine Days' Queen, Lady Jane Grey, and Her Times — A Closer Reading, where a young life is rewritten by others’ ambitions. I still think about how both books hold their subjects tenderly, letting history’s noise fade to a whisper.

Leo Mitchell

1 week ago

Grace Martin

3 weeks ago

5 out of 5 (2 User reviews )

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Tiffany Shelton - 1 month ago

This overlooked historical document is a fascinating glimpse into 16th-century anti-Spanish propaganda during the Anglo-Spanish War. The author's witty, satirical style makes this a deliciously engaging read, filled with sensational tales of Spanish cruelty and English heroism. It's a must-have for anyone studying the period's political literature, and it also entertains with its audacious narrative.

Sherry Waters - 4 weeks ago

A tedious piece of propaganda, this 'libell' is at best repetitive and at worst misleading. Its overtly biased and sensationalized accusations against the Spanish add little historical value, and the writing is dry and uninspired. The satirical elements fall flat, and the overall pamphlet reads as a hastily written political screed. Only for dedicated historians of English propaganda, and even then, with reluctance.

Steven Peterson - 2 weeks ago

This short pamphlet is a curious artifact, offering a satirical take on Spanish intrigues against England. It's concise and easy to read, with a dry wit that will appeal to history lovers. However, its blatant bias and lack of solid historical grounding make it more of a curiosity than a factual account. Good for a quick, amusing glimpse into the past.