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English Armada
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The English Armada (also known as the Counter Armada, or the Drake-Norris Expedition) was a fleet of warships sent to the Iberian coast by Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1589, during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). It was led by Sir Francis Drake as admiral and Sir John Norreys as general, and failed to drive home the advantage England had won upon the dispersal of the Spanish Armada in the previous year. The campaign resulted in defeat and eventually to a withdrawal with heavy losses both in lives and ships.
n Elizabeth's intentions were to capitalise upon Spain's temporary weakness at sea after the successful repulsion of the Spanish Armada and to compel Philip II to sue for peace.
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The English Armada (also known as the Counter Armada, or the Drake-Norris Expedition) was a fleet of warships sent to the Iberian coast by Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1589, during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). It was led by Sir Francis Drake as admiral and Sir John Norreys as general, and failed to drive home the advantage England had won upon the dispersal of the Spanish Armada in the previous year. The campaign resulted in defeat and eventually to a withdrawal with heavy losses both in lives and ships.
Aims and planning
Queen Elizabeth's intentions were to capitalise upon Spain's temporary weakness at sea after the successful repulsion of the Spanish Armada and to compel Philip II to sue for peace. It was not a simple matter, and the expedition had three distinct aims: to burn the Spanish Atlantic fleet, to make a landing at Lisbon and raise a revolt there against Philip II, and then to continue south and establish a permanent base in the Azores. A further aim was to seize the Spanish treasure fleet as it returned from America to Cadiz, although this depended largely on the success of the Azores campaign.
The critical calculation was based on an understanding of Portuguese politics. The Portuguese empire included Brazil, and the East Indies, among other areas, and trading posts in India and China. By securing an allegiance with the Portuguese crown, Elizabeth hoped to curb Spanish power in Europe and open up for her favourites the trade routes that these possessions commanded.
It was a difficult proposition, because the domestic aristocracy of Portugal had accepted Philip II as their king in 1580. The pretender to the throne, António, Prior of Crato — last surviving heir of the House of Aviz — failed to establish an effective government in exile in the Azores, and turned to the English for support. But he was not a charismatic figure, and with his cause compromised by his illegitimacy, he faced an opponent with perhaps the better claim, in the eyes of the Portuguese nobles of the Cortes, Catherine, Duchess of Braganza.
The complex politics were not the only drawback for the expedition. Like its Spanish predecessor, the English Armada suffered from overly optimistic planning, based on hopes of repeating Drake's successful raid on Cadiz in 1587. A critical contradiction lay between the separate plans, each of which was ambitious in its own right. But the most pressing need was the destruction of the Spanish Atlantic fleet lying at port at A Coruña, San Sebastián and Santander along the north coast of Spain, as directly ordered by the Queen.
The expedition was floated as a joint stock company, with capital of about £80,000 — one quarter to come from the Queen, and one eighth from the Dutch, the balance to be made up by various noblemen, merchants and guilds. Concerns over logistics and adverse weather delayed the departure of the fleet, and confusion grew as it waited in port. The Dutch failed to supply their promised warships, a third of the victuals had already been consumed, and the number of veteran soldiers was only 1,800 while the ranks of volunteers had increased the planned contingent of troops from 10,000 to 19,000. The fleet also lacked siege guns and cavalry — items that had been lavishly laid on in the Spanish Armada expedition of the previous year — which raises serious doubts about the intentions of those in charge of the preparations.
Execution
When the fleet sailed, it was made up of 6 royal galleons, 60 English armed merchantmen, 60 Dutch flyboats and about 20 pinnaces. In addition to the troops, there were 4,000 sailors and 1,500 officers and gentlemen adventurers. Drake assigned his vessels to five squadrons, led respectively by himself in the Revenge, Sir John Norreys in the Nonpareil, Norreys' brother Edward in the Foresight, Thomas Fenner in the Dreadnought, and Roger Williams in the Swiftsure. Also sailing with them — against the Queen's express orders — was the Earl of Essex.
Most of the ships lost in Philip II's expedition of 1588 had been armed merchantmen, while the core of the armada — the galleons of the Spanish navy's Atlantic fleet — survived their voyage home and docked in Spain's Atlantic ports for a refit, where they lay for months, vulnerable to attack.
Unforeseen delays and a fear of becoming embayed in the Bay of Biscay led Drake to bypass Santander, where most of this refitting was underway, and attack Corunna in Galicia instead. Norreys took the lower town, killed 500 Spaniards, and plundered the wine cellars, while Drake destroyed 13 merchant ships in the harbour. For the next two weeks the wind blew westerly, and while the English waited for a change a feeble siege of Corunna's fortified upper town consumed their efforts. A pair of Spanish galleys slipped past the English fleet and repeatedly resupplied the defenders, and at length, with a favourable wind returning, the English abandoned the siege, having lost four captains and several hundred soldiers in the fighting, along with 3,000 other personnel in 24 of the transports, including many of the Dutch, who found reasons to return to England or put into La Rochelle. Those who remained then turned their attention, first to Puente de Burgos, where Norreys won a modest victory, and then to Lisbon.
Lisbon was said to be defended by a disaffected garrison, but while the English bloodied themselves at Corunna the Spaniards spent a crucial fortnight shoring up Portugal's defences. When Norreys invested the city, the expected uprising was not forthcoming and little was achieved. Drake did take the opportunity on 30 June of seizing a fleet of 20 French and 60 Hanseatic ships, which had broken the English blockade on trade with Spain by sailing all around the north of Scotland only to fetch up before the English cannon in the mouth of the Tagus. This seizure, notes R. B. Wernham, 'dealt a useful blow to Spanish preparations', but later required a publicly-printed justification, a Declaration of Causes, from the Queen's own printer, as, without booty, she and her fellow English investors faced considerable losses.
The English dealt a further blow to Spanish naval preparations and food supplies by destroying the Lisbon granaries, but despite the bravado of Essex, who thrust a sword in at the gates of the city with a challenge to the defenders, the English could not take Lisbon without artillery or open Portuguese support. The expected rising failed to eventuate, in part because of the absence of Drake, the land and naval forces having divided and lost contact after the landing at Peniche, and the defenders would not risk battle. Essex received orders from Elizabeth to return to court, along with a refusal to send reinforcements or a siege train, the queen having no desire to carry the main burden of a land war in Portugal. It was therefore decided to concentrate on the third aim of the expedition, the establishment of a permanent base in the Azores. But the campaign had taken its toll. Drake's forces had initially caught the Spanish authorities off guard but Spain had now prepared its defences and the English were wearing out and suffering increasingly from disease.
It was soon understood that any attempt to land in the Azores was out of the question, and Drake made a final attempt to retrieve the mission. At this point, most men were out of action and only 2,000 were fit to be mustered. Stormy weather had also damaged a number of ships. While Norreys sailed for home with the sick and wounded, Drake took his pick of what was left and set out with 20 ships to hunt for the treasure fleet. He was struck by another heavy storm and was unable to carry out even that task, and while Porto Santo in Madeira was plundered, his flagship, the Revenge, sprang a leak and almost foundered as it led the remainder of the fleet home to Plymouth.
The expedition was a naval disaster and a major disappointment. None of its aims were accomplished, and for many years the result discouraged further joint-stock adventures on such a scale. The English sustained heavy losses of ships, men and resources, but only brought back 150 captured cannon and £30,000 of plunder. The only significant accomplishment was perhaps the temporal disruption to Spanish shipping. That, together with the induced diversion of Spanish troops and resources contributed to a mutiny of the Spanish Parma's army in Flanders, which relieved some of the pressure on the Dutch that August.
Consequences
With the opportunity to strike a decisive blow against the weakened Spanish lost, the failure of the expedition further depleted the crown treasury that had been so carefully restored during the long reign of Elizabeth I. The Anglo-Spanish war was very costly to both sides, and Spain itself, also fighting France and the United Provinces, had to default on its debt repayments in 1596, following another raid on Cadiz. But the failure of the English Armada was a turning point, and the fortunes of the various parties to this complicated conflict fluctuated until the Treaty of London in 1604, when a peace was agreed.
Spain's rebuilt navy had quickly recovered and exceeded its former numerical preponderance at sea, allowing it to maintain control over its own sea lanes, and thereby safely ship even larger amounts of precious metals, until the rising strength of the Dutch navy (with a battle fleet marginally smaller than England's but with a much larger merchant marine) finally completed its eclipse fifty years later. Meanwhile English naval pressure forced Spain to focus on its Caribbean preserves; to quote J. H. Parry: 'The silver fleets, and the sea lanes through which they passed, were well-defended; but the very concentration of warships made it impossible for Spain to defend its pretensions to monopoly elsewhere in the Atlantic.'
Throughout the war the navy of England, with its 'all-big-gun ships', benefited from sustained expenditure, allowing it to maintain its superiority in armament, gun-drill, and tactical doctrine, and to expand its strength by 1595 to 38 warships, carrying a total of 1,059 guns (628 of them 9-pounders and above). Moreover, to quote Parker: 'Despite her celebrated reputation for parsimony, Elizabeth spent heavily on naval construction, and on the maintenance of a permanent cadre of officers and men, throughout most of her reign', with the result that 'the navy was stronger in both ships and firepower at the end of the war than it had been at the beginning'.
Nevertheless Spain's post-Armada strategy was largely successful; protecting its own colonial commerce whilst maintaining pressure by damaging English commerce in the North Sea and elsewhere and with materiel support for the Irish rebellion. The failure of the English fleet of 1589 to strike a decisive blow against the Spanish navy allowed the Spanish to consolidate their hold on territories in the Americas and effectively bar the English from launching further colonial efforts there during the remainder of Elizabeth's reign. Spain's mainland American empire was to last until the early 19th century. With the peace treaty, the English were able to consolidate their hold on Ireland and focus on establishing future colonies in North America .
See also
External links
- "The Beginning of the End: The Drake-Norris Expedition, 1589"
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