Medina Sidonia’s abandonment of the Rosario marked his first real failure

Evidence

The duke had been on deck all day and had eaten nothing since breakfast. He did not go below now. He had a boy bring him a crust and some cheese to the poop-deck, and stood a long time, leaning on the taffrail watching the wake and the blackness beyond. Abandoning the Rosario was his first real failure, and he knew that whoever advised it and however wise had been the advice his would be the blame. Perhaps it was only then he remembered that Diego Flores de Valdés and Pedro de Valdés were not only cousins but inveterate and implacable enemies. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 645

Categorization

• FICTION: A perfect interiority beat for a protagonist: the admiral’s hunger, the silent poop-deck, and the delayed realization of the feuding cousins — pure character drama.
• QUESTION: Why exactly were the two Valdés cousins inveterate enemies, and how did that feud shape the Rosario decision?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 645
• XREF: connects to: Medina Sidonia may have made no decisive command error in the campaign — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 843; Medina Sidonia’s self-blame entrenched the myth of his incompetence — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 831

Library Connections

• Medina Sidonia may have made no decisive command error in the campaign #complicates (0.75) — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 843

Broader Connections

• Medina Sidonia’s self-blame entrenched the myth of his incompetence #expands (0.65) — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 831