When Dr Jerry Brotton, then an English lecturer at Royal Holloway department and now part of BBC favourite Lisa Jardine’s English department at Queen Mary’s London, came out two years ago with his “It’s The Turks Wot Won It” theory – that action by the Ottoman Empire at the request of Elizabeth’s spymaster Francis Walsingham had “fatally weakened” the Armada, the Guardian were quick to follow up, seemingly claiming in a rather garbled editorial that the incident strenghtened the case for Turkey’s accession to the EU.
I noted at the time that we were seeing a new liberal myth in embryo.
A couple of months later Trevor Phillips repeated Dr Brotton’s claims in a lecture delivered at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (he also name-checked the Islamic King Offa myth – I’m surprised the BBC haven’t picked that one up). The myth was starting to run.
Only one problem – the complete lack of evidence for the claim. For the theory to be tenable evidence for three things would be necessary :
- That Walsingham had asked the ambassador to encourage Ottoman action against Spain
- That Harborne, the ambassador, successfully induced the Turks to harass Spanish possessions or otherwise threaten Spain, over and above the existing semi-endemic warfare between them
- That this had a decisive impact on the Armada
Unfortunately only the first of these – Walsingham’s letter to the ambassador at the Ottoman court – is supported by any evidence.
There is no evidence that the letter resulted in any movements by the Ottoman fleet or army – or by any Ottoman allies.
There is no evidence of any impact on the Armada.
I did mail Dr Brotton to ask if such evidence existed, but he didn’t reply. In the absence of any supporting evidence I can only conclude that Dr Brotton’s making it up as he goes along.
What’s this got to do with the BBC ? Because they’re repeating this myth.
British history should be rewritten to make it “more inclusive”, says Trevor Phillips, the head of the new human rights and equality commission.
He said Muslims were also part of the national story and “sometimes we have to go back into the tapestry and insert some threads that were lost”.
He quoted the example of the Spanish Armada, which was held up by the Turks at the request of Queen Elizabeth I.
No. The Armada was not ‘held up by the Turks’. The BBC are perpetuating an untruth. Don’t take my word for it :
Dr Simon Adams, co-author of “England, Spain and the Grand Armada” argues the Ottoman Turks were not threatening the Spanish in the Mediterranean.
“The Walsingham letter had been sent in 1584 or 1585 and although England might have hoped the Turks would cause the Spanish problems, nothing really happened,” he told Reuters.
“The Turks were not really doing anything (against Spain) in 1588. They were busy in the near east,” added the University of Strathclyde academic.
Adams said the Armada failed because the expedition was poorly planned and the English had an effective navy helped by favourable weather.
So Dr Adams thinks there’s no evidence for a theory the BBC are presenting as fact. And who’s he ? Well, he’s the guy who wrote the BBC History pages on the Armada.
Why is this so important ? Because the Armada story is a key component of our history – of the English national story, which still carries enormous cultural significance. As CLR James put it :
English people, for example, have a conception of themselves breathed from birth. Drake and mighty Nelson, Shakespeare, Waterloo, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the few who did so much for so many, the success of parliamentary democracy, those and such as those constitute a national tradition.
The motives of Dr Brotton and Trevor Phillips in seeking to present a politically correct travesty of a key moment in English history – an attack on the English national story – are outside the remit of this blog. But it is shameful that the BBC are repeating their claims as fact.
UPDATE – surprise surprise – Dr Brotton is a Newsnight reviewer.
“He is currently writing a book on Shakespeare and Islam”
Oh dear god, NO!
I don’t particularly mind the BBC’s need to remind its paying customers that the UK’s history isn’t as glorious as the BBC thinks we all think it is. It’s such an adolescently rebellious approach that I almost enjoy it. The other side of this coin is that the BBC often makes programmes which speak reverentially of the histories and culture of other countries. This too is adolescent. I’m sure a lot of BBC types are convinced that the UK is a quite a bad place to be, just as many teenagers are convinced that their parents are awful, while those of their friends are not.
As the vast majority of people watch the BBC for trash like Eastenders and Top Gear, the antics of the BBC’s history dept sixth formers don’t matter.
Trouble is, this is the ‘news’. How long before it’s repeated in history lessons ?
Laban Tall
Dr Brotton’s “history” will probably take an honoured place in our school curricula beside Al Gore’s “Convenient Untruth” before the end of the decade.
I’m no BBC supporter but in this instance the likes of the ‘Offa converted to islam’ lie is not a wicked conspiracy by the BBC.
This sort of lie is up there with ‘all wars are due to religion’,
‘christianity taught the world was flat’, ‘the jews did not really come from israel’, or ‘ploughmen in olden times used to eat cheese and pickle’.
Instead it is an example where the Hitler line of a big lie is more likely to be believed than a small lie and the Mussolini line of if you repeat a lie often enough it will be believed.
Since the result of the lie fits in with their mindset and agenda they are all too willing to believe it, and make no attept to check out the realities, that is the problem.
[The Moderator: BJ, neither Laban nor anyone else in comments said or suggested that this was a “conspiracy”. Rather, the situation seems to be more like… well, like what you yourself describe in your comment.].
Give it a few weeks and it will be revealed that Sir Francis Drake was in fact never in Plymouth playing bowls but sitting sipping chai overlooking the Bosphorus when the Armada approached.
Andrew
The BBC page you link to looks pretty garbled – like a work-in-progress that may have gone live in error.
Significantly the line about the Armada appears at the top without quotation marks, but reappears towards the end within running quotation marks as if directly quoting Trevor P.
Is there a conventional graphics or more polished version?
JR
edit the url replacing “low” with “hi”
Thanks Wayne.
That’s dodgy too.
A polite complaint along the lines that –
the author of the piece, by failing to attribute the words to Trevor P, appears to accept something as fact – when it is not accepted by most authorities….. and in particular is specifically refuted by Dr Simon Adams, author of the BBC’s own armada pages in the history website……piece should not only put quotation marks around the claim, but also make clear that the ‘facts’ are not accepted by leading historians….etc
should do the trick.
JR, this post is by Laban rather than me – a welcome change for us all!
JR: “a work-in-progress that may have gone live in error”
…which could be said about so much of BBC Views Online… especially when you get caught out. Whatever happened to quality control? Isn’t Ā£3.5 billion a year enough to get by on?
So do the history pages of BBC Online mention Turkish involvement? I’ve had a quick scan and can’t find one.
(JR’s right though, that News story needs rather more attribution built into it)
The BBC’s obsessive need to cover up, or at least ignore, unpleasant
truths about Islam whilst at the same time presenting a contrived and politically-correct version of its history and present-day realities is both embarassing and annoying.
Given the high regard which the liberal/lefties at the BBC hold Islam, and given that there is so much “misunderstanding” about Islam in the West and Britain, wouldn’t it be a good idea for the BBC to make a documentary series covering the history and origins of Islam as well as the prophet Mohammed? An epic 10-part documentary about Islam would go a long way to disabuse those silly misguided fools who have formed a negative association
with this “great world religion”. But in order to do this, the BBC would have to leave out any mention of the Prophet’s banditry, his murderous raids on trade caravans and tribal settlements, his marriage to a six-year old girl (consumated when she was nine years old), his use of plunder for recruiting
his greedy army of desperados, his assassinations of opponents (including women poets), his use of blackmail and expulsion, his participation in the massacre of the Jews of Medinah, his attack and
enslavement of the Jews of Khayber,
his encouragment and participation in the rape of women and children and the sale of these victims after the rape, his use of trickery, treachery and bribery employed to swell the numbers of his followers. The final episodes could avoid any mention of the devestation, displacment and genocide of pre-Islamic cultures and religions in North Africa, India, and Europe before their “conversion” to Islam. Conversions, which the BBC could
astutely avoid telling its audience were done in the main using the sword and enforced “dhimmi” taxes. As for the verses in the Koran which advocate murder, intolerance
and savagery, leading to an understanding of Islam that now inspires Islamist terrorists worldwide, the BBC could simply avoid quoting them or could simply explain them away them by saying they
are being quoted out of context or can only be understood correctly by speakers classical Arabic. The BBC could even give that oft-quoted verse from the Koran, one much loved by useful idiots and those
who want to convince us that Islam is really just a cuddly a tragically misunderstood geopolitical movement, I mean religion, namely: “..that
whosoever killeth a human being, it shall be as if he had killed all
mankind”. But as is usual for this quote, the BBC could avoid telling its viewers what is actually written in the Koran, namely:” that whosoever killeth a human being, for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind”.
And they had better not mention that the Koran makes it quite clear on
numerous occasions that those who “make corruption on earth” are non-Muslims and so it is quite alright to kill them. They had better not mention that this wicked refractory group should be killed, enslaved, or in most benign implementation just merely over-taxed and just told to shut up or else and accept their overlords’ authority. A bit like the BBC’s policy towards its licence payers, don’t you think?
JR, David Gregory – you may be interested to know that there’s also equally “good” evidence that the Turks defeated the Luftwaffe in 1940. After all, Churchill wrote to the ambassador in Ankara asking him to get Turkey involved in the war.
http://ukcommentators.blogspot.com/2007/10/jerry-brotton-another-amazing-discovery.html
Don’t forget the daring Cadiz raid – it fatally weakened the physical constitution of the Armada before it was even built (owing to the decades it takes for wood to mature).
“The motives of Dr Brotton and Trevor Phillips in seeking to present a politically correct travesty of a key moment in English history – an attack on the English national story – are outside the remit of this blog.”
But not outside the remit of a commenter.
Fellow’s, we’re in an undeclared war and they want to destroy us.
[OT comment deleted by the moderator.]
Jerry Brotton sounds a bit like one of those sad immigrants who are ashamed of their roots and so talk about what ‘we’ did and thought in, say, the 17th century even though neither he nor any member of his family were anywhere near this sceptred isle in the 17th century.
Laban Tall
Actually, Churchill went further than that and flew in secret to Turkey in January 1943 to meet the Turkish President Inonu near Adana in a vain attempt to get Turkey into the War on the side of the Allies. ( Turkey provided much covert assistance as a result).
However, I am not aware of any Ottoman historical sources referring to any action against the Spanish in the 1580’s. Has the BBC checked with the Ottoman archives ?
Jack Spratt | 02.10.07 – 5:16 pm
sounds a bit like one of those sad immigrants who are ashamed of their roots and so talk about what ‘we’ did and thought in, say, the 17th century even though neither he nor any member of his family were anywhere near this sceptred isle in the 17th century.
Not sure what your point is here. Is this a subtle anti-semitic remark? Or anti-something else? If so, what?
I’m not saying this story about the Armada is a conspiracy, but. . .
An objective of Common Purpose is to coerce or engineer the British public into thinking correctly.
What links all the players in the story?
The BBC has had loads of it’s people on their courses.
Trevor Phillips, certainly a Trevor Phillips is plastered all over Common Purpose’s website.
Haven’t found Botton yet. . .
š
Salmon
may i congratulate you on a monumental post!
is this mere BBC ignorance of the HISTORY OF ISLAM or is it something more sinister?
Fabulous post, Salmon, and one which, I notice, our friend JR does not comment on. I wonder why?
I look forward to our licence payers money being used for such a ground breaking documentary series, one which will help all of us to understand the ways of Islam.
Oh someone mentioned Common Purpose.
It’s a thinktank, anyone can join. Though crucially not everybody does join, the neo-trot group needs to be fought on the basis of its ideology to be soundly defeated.. And here’s how you do it:
Know your enemy: Common Purpose is a charity/party that promotes ‘Multiculturalism’, ‘Diversity’, Marxist Racialism and “One-Worldism”.
The enemy seeks to implement something the great Fabian Tassano has called ‘Disaster Socialism‘. In other words, all the disasters caused be Socialism will be blamed Capitalism with an eye on justifying yet more Socialism… A fatal example of this would be (and this is where you slash the enemies jugular):
The Iraq War.
The New-Conservatives dream of a world united under Hegelian Amerika. The New-Conservatives however have started an unwinnable war in Iraq.
The war is unwinnable because as Colonel Kurtz said in a hallucination I’ve just had:
Colonel Kurtz: We have to destroy the Islam-o-fascists. But to destroy Islamofascism we have to destroy Islam. But that can’t be possible because that would mean that 1.5 Billion Human beings can’t be included in the new UNIVERSALIST Amerika. It would scuttle the noble dreams of a single unified humanity. The awfulness. The Awfulness.
For the New Conservatives want to Unite the world under Amerika.
The Democrats want to unite the world under the United Nations.
The anti-war movement wants to unify humanity under the Communist International.
All these movements hae one thing in common: The pretentious claim of being ‘Universal’ and all things to all men. This is what unCommon Purpose stands for. It is a particularly virulent expression of an ideology that is now so ubiquitous that most people can’t see the wood for the trees.
But that’s how to defeat it. Speak truth, and thou shall receive the Crown of Freedom.
WoAD | Homepage | 03.10.07 – 1:27 am |
Where do you get the idea Common Purpose is a Marxist organisation? You may well be right but it’s web-site appears innocuous.
Marceau and GrimlySqueamish, thank you for your kind comments. Unfortunately, we all know that the leftist/liberal cabal who run the BBC have neither the intellectual honesty nor the moral courage to make an objective documentary about the history of Islam. The furthest they would be prepared to go would be to tell us how wonderful was period of Islamic Andalusia: the Potemkin village of European Islam.
To the Fat Contractor,
Their web-site is innocuous, I think that is the point, you need to sign in.
People are ‘invited’ to courses, the right people and the young and suggestible to be trained to take their places in their new society.
Check out the video, plenty of Beeboids involved.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=3664960863576873594&hl=en-GB
WoAD, glad to know Iām not the only one who thinks this lot want to turn Britain and the EU into the new N Korea.
fnu snu | Homepage | 03.10.07 – 5:53 pm |
Just watched the video. Not quite sure I believe it, especially the somewhat melodramatic references to murder. However I can quite believe that there are charities out there that provide courses for people that push an agenda, that use reframing and other psychological techniques to move people towards a ‘desired’ position. It wouldn’t suprise me because I know how the left works, how it tries to destroy society from within so that it can ‘rebuild anew’.
The idea, however, that you can restructure someones thought processes over a weekend without the use of psychotropes is, however, laughable. Damage and destabalise perhaps, restructure no.
And is it the EU at the heart of it? Not sure about that one, either.
I came away with much the same impression as you, he did seem to go off on tangents but the central thrust about Common Purpose I find quite disturbing.
As for the courses, I understand they invite those of the right midset in the first place and the young, who are more impressionable.
Of course it could all be very ‘tin foil’ hat, but I will keep an eye on them š