Alonso Perez de Guzman, 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia

Alonso Perez de Guzman, seventh Duke of Medina Sidonia, commanded the Spanish Armada of 1588 and had asked not to. He was the greatest landowner in Andalusia, an experienced administrator of the Indies fleets and of the port of Cadiz, and by every account a competent and conscientious man on land. When Philip II appointed him after the death of the Marquis of Santa Cruz, he wrote to the king saying that he had no experience of war at sea, that he was always seasick, that he had no money, and that the responsibility should go to someone else. The letter survives and the king's secretaries never showed it to Philip. He sailed anyway, and held the fleet in its defensive crescent up the Channel under English gunnery for a week with a discipline that impressed his opponents. The plan destroyed him rather than his seamanship: the Armada was supposed to collect Parma's army from Flanders, and Parma had no deep-water port and no means of reaching the fleet. Fireships broke the anchorage at Calais, Gravelines scattered the formation, and the wind left no way home but north around Scotland and Ireland, where storms and a lee shore did most of the killing. About half the ships and perhaps two thirds of the men never returned. He reached Santander alive and was jeered in the streets of Spain as the duke who fled. Philip did not dismiss him and kept him as captain-general of Andalusia for another eight years. The historical verdict has softened considerably: the campaign was lost in its conception, and he had said so in writing before it began.

• Lived: 1550 CE – 1615 CE
• Nationality: Spanish
• Roles: noble, military_leader