Fire over England

FIRE OVER ENGLAND
See Film and synopsis 


A thinly veiled metaphor for then-neutral Britain's need to prepare for the threat of Nazi invasion, and published while the Spanish Civil War was raging, the book was made into a film by Alexander Korda in 1937, England's leading film producer; Korda was helping Winston Churchill in his struggle to alert the British people to the military threat of the Third Reich. Whilst the novelist Mason is careful to appear even handed in his treatment of the various personalities, including Phillip of Spain and Santa Cruz; while this now appears naive in the extreme, the purpose was to show there were men of goodwill on all sides.

Korda, the film's director by William K. Howard, and the writer Clemence Dane, emphasise, for clear propagandist purposes, the narrative of England standing alone against the dark horror of Spanish Catholic tyranny, and to serve as a reminder of an historical precedent to echo a present Nazi threat. 



This trope continues into the 21st century with entertaining historical drama and the re-framing of an heroic England, standing alone in a hostile world. 

Amnesia reigns, along with Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth, when it comes to remembering British imperialism in a globalised cultural, political and economic setting. This is a story integral with the foundation story of the British Empire.

THE LION HAS WINGS
Portions of the film Fire over England, including the beacons being lit on the English coast, and an armour-clad Queen Elizabeth giving her speech to the surrounding soldiers at Tilbury before the Battle of Gravelines, were used in the 1939 World War II propaganda documentary The Lion Has Wings. It is used to compare the Spanish invasion attempt to a Nazi invasion, demonstrating how Great Britain has survived against great odds in the past, and would again.