Girl seen as the Spanish surrounded the English (5)
I believe the answer is:
ethel
'girl' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'the spanish surrounded the english' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
an anagram of 'the' is 'eth' which is present in the answer.
'english' could be 'e' (abbreviation as in OED) and 'e' is present in the answer.
A single letter 'l' remains which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'seen as' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ethel that I've seen before include "Lady" , "Female name" , "- Merman, US musical comedy star" , "Dame - Smyth, Eng. composer, suffragette" , "woman" .)