MovieChat Forums > Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) Discussion > Spain: the World's Most Powerful Empire ...

Spain: the World's Most Powerful Empire in 1585??????


Epic movies are bound to be full of historical errors which in most cases are understandable and enjoyable for entertainment purposes. Most factual errors already listed on this site, e.g. Mary Stuart's last moment at Fotheringhay, are rather picky for a movie.

However, I found one factual error too obvious and unacceptable:

Big caption at the beginning of this movie says: Spain was the most powerful empire in the WORLD. This is too much. Hollywood could have just said "the most powerful empire in Europe." That alone is enough to emphasize late 16th century Spanish power and is historically accurate.

For some 2000 years, the most powerful empire in the world was always China until it lost the Opium War to the British in the 1830's-40's. At the height of Spainish expansion as well as the Elizabethan Renaissance, the Chinese Ming empire was still way ahead of the rest of the world both in terms of gross economy and military power.

Hollywood often tends to forget: the world is not just a western world. They made similar mistake in Alexander already. His ragged army was not the strongest at that time, his conquests not the greatest either...

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that is absolute nonsense. China has always been ONE of the powerful empires in the world. During 1500's Ottoman was the most powerful empire. During 1600's onto 1700's Spain grows to become the most powerful empire.

Spanish empire in the 16th century was as 3 times larger than Ming of 13th century (which was their prime).

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Oh history history history..........a fascinating subject to speak about. And one that even though theres tons of books, accounts, etc on the subject. We still don't know nearly everything, or even close.
Thats why its called HISTORY. or HIS STORY. Because men wrote it and men decided what it would say. Its a story.
I am saying right now that history is written by the winners (classic statement yes i know) and lots have been changed to suit whoevers wants and needs and decisions. Its hard to believe what they say when history is just a story.

Obviously not EVERYTHING is a lie or wrong, but to just believe it all is to be quite naive.
How exactly do you KNOW for sure that some of the things that happened, actually happened? People were not morons back then, times were a LOT harder (obviously) and living would have been tough.

just something to think about.........i wouldn';t want to "offend" the history buffs who believe everything they read, just because the writer says he/she has a doctorate or PH D and believes it him/hers self.

Chase the Dragon!

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Um Spain WAS the most powerful Empire at that time.

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Yes, Spain was the most powerful empire up til that point because they managed to make itself rich in a short time thanks to all the gold they so gloriously stole from the natives in South America.

However the humiliating loss of the Spanish Armada was a serious blow, a total fiasco as far as Spain was concerned. In an instant England became the major naval player and quickly gained territory in the new world.

Need I remind you that Spain was on the losing side in the 30 Years War (1618-1648), which was a failure as far as the Catholic Church was concerned. Large chunks of Europe suddenly had no allegiance to the Pope.
Spain also lost the Franco-Spanish war of 1635-1659 and the Bourbons of France had the upper hand of the "Habsburgs" of Spain from this point on.

So yes, Spain had good days up until 1588, but lost crucial battles after and saw its power and influence diminish in the 1600's.

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"""""""""""""Yes, Spain was the most powerful empire up til that point because they managed to make itself rich in a short time thanks to all the gold they so gloriously stole from the natives in South America.""""""""""



ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ the old JEALOUSY-driven black legend nonsense rears its ugly head yet again.. <yawn>

fyi: the spanish empire didn't suffer nearly as much from the armada's campaign as you so wish to believe.. in fact, spain would soon turn the tables on the english by massacring the english fleet at la corunna in 1589..

again, england has always been jealous of spain's riches and legendary imperial prestige, a prestige the english so badly wanted for themselves but could never attain no matter how many cutthroats, privateers and thugs they sent to pillage the spanish fleets, fleets the English so wished were theirs instead, so please give your hypocritical moral pontifications and high horse rants at the door..

in the end, the english were merely reduced to watching from afar and climbing on said moral high horse, as if they would've been any less rapaciously driven to gather riches than the spanish.. such hypocrisy! in fact, if the hideous british track record of colonial abuse in india is any indication, if anything, the brits would have been much worse than the spanish ever were [especially considering england's poverty and her status as a virtual backwater kingdom on the fringes of european affairs and in the long shadow of spain's empire at the time], for the simple fact that at least the spanish had in the catholic church a built-in moral balance to guard against extreme abuse, which is why all the pioneer defenders of native americans' human rights were spanish, not english..

what's even pathetic still from england's stand-point is that the english tout the armada [an effort whose ultimate lack of success had infinitely more to do with unfavorable 'weather patterns' than with anything the english ever did] as they rush to bring down the spanish empire, only to then turn around and model their own johnny-come-lately empire on the much older and more prestigious spanish one by stealing the legendary 'over which the sun never sets' claim from the spanish habsburgs' motto.. tsk-tsk-tsk these jealous empire-hungry brits couldn't even have an original thought of their own! as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery i suppose.. ;-)

meanwhile, while modern brits are too busy vacationing in the sunny spain they love to bash, the muslim brotherhood of terrorists is stealing the uk right from under the silly brits who, as sad as it seems, seem much more given to worrying about mythical catholic bogeymen than about the real threat muslims pose to modern britain.. so keep burying your heads in the sand, mates.. soon your fair maidens will be forced to wear burkahs in your beloved british isles as sharia law becomes the law of the queen's realm.. see how far you english oafs have come since the armada? gospeed and cheerios! ;-)

it wasn't the fall from her 16th-floor penthouse that killed her, it was the stop

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Spain was colonizing the unknown world at a break-neck pace and literally swimming in gold. When the vault was full, they'd pack up and conquer another nation-sized tract of land and repeat. All the while winning, on the shorthanded side mind you, some of the most lopsided battles in the history of mankind due to their technical prowess.

If you think China was anywhere even close to that in terms of technology, you are sorely mistaken. It's the 21st century and they can't even hold onto Taiwan. They have to bully feudalistic monks to expand.

It's great that China has an ancient and exquisite culture, but these are the same people that were so completely decentralized they couldn't prevent tiny colonies from Europe monopolizing their major trade ports with a few thousand troops. Let's not forget the Manchu, the Mongols, and the Japanese all walked over China like it was their personal playgrounds.

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on that date, the most powerful empire was "ottoman empire", you can check the history records.

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on that date, the most powerful empire was "ottoman empire"


spanish empire during the time span of this film.. i.e., under philip II and during the 'iberian union' (1580-1640): 29.8 million square kilometers..

vs.

ottoman empire at its greatest extent: 5.2 million square kilometers..

it wasn't the fall from her 16th-floor penthouse that killed her, it was the landing

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¿Envidia cochina?

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The point is no one country or person can rule the whole world ..ever. Unless it can be done without taking a single life and everyone was fine with it. Now that's mission impossible.

The increase in human knowledge is the cause of the decline of religions.

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"The increase in human knowledge is the cause of the decline of religions"

Brilliantly and simply stated. This statement is of course, entirely unrelated to the topic on this discussion board re the might of the Spanish empire in the 16th century, but pktulpepk, it is as good a way as any other to hopefully bring about an end to the squabbling which has preceded your wise observation.

Cheers.

Now, who wishes to disagree re causes for the decline of religions?!

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