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Spanish Armada
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The Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, leading to the Norris-Drake Expedition or English Armada of 1589.
King Philip II of Spain had been king consort of England until the death, in 1558, of his wife, Queen Mary I of England, and he took exception to the policies pursued by her successor, his sister-in-law Elizabeth I. The aim of his expedition was to invade and conquer England, thereby suppressing support for the United Provinces – that part of the Spanish Netherlands in possession of the Dutch rebels – and cutting off attacks by the English against Spanish possessions in the New World and against the Atlantic treasure fleets. The king was supported by Pope Sixtus V, who treated the invasion as a crusade, with the promise of a further subsidy should the Armada make land.
The Armada's appointed commander was the highly experienced Álvaro de Bazán, but he died in February 1588, and Medina Sidonia took his place.
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The Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, leading to the Norris-Drake Expedition or English Armada of 1589.
King Philip II of Spain had been king consort of England until the death, in 1558, of his wife, Queen Mary I of England, and he took exception to the policies pursued by her successor, his sister-in-law Elizabeth I. The aim of his expedition was to invade and conquer England, thereby suppressing support for the United Provinces – that part of the Spanish Netherlands in possession of the Dutch rebels – and cutting off attacks by the English against Spanish possessions in the New World and against the Atlantic treasure fleets. The king was supported by Pope Sixtus V, who treated the invasion as a crusade, with the promise of a further subsidy should the Armada make land.
The Armada's appointed commander was the highly experienced Álvaro de Bazán, but he died in February 1588, and Medina Sidonia took his place. The fleet set out with 22 warships of the Spanish Royal Navy and 108 converted merchant vessels, with the intention of sailing through the English Channel to anchor off the coast of Flanders, where the Duke of Parma's army of tercios would stand ready for an invasion of the south-east of England.
The Armada achieved its first goal and anchored outside Gravelines, at the coastal border area between France and the Spanish Netherlands. While awaiting communications from Parma's army, it was driven from its anchorage by an English fire ship attack, and in the ensuing battle at Gravelines the Spanish were forced to abandon their rendezvous with Parma's army.
The Armada managed to regroup and withdraw north, with the English fleet harrying it for some distance up the east coast of England. A return voyage to Spain was plotted, and the fleet sailed into the Atlantic, past Ireland. But severe storms disrupted the fleet's course, and more than 24 vessels were wrecked on the north and western coasts of Ireland, with the survivors having to seek refuge in Scotland. Of the fleet's initial complement, about 50 vessels failed to make it back to Spain.
The expedition was the largest engagement of the undeclared Anglo–Spanish War.
The planned invasion of England
Prior to the undertaking, Pope Sixtus V allowed Philip II of Spain to collect crusade taxes and granted his men indulgences. The blessing of the Armada's banner on 25 April 1588 was similar to the ceremony used prior to the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. On 28 May 1588 the Armada set sail from Lisbon, headed for the English Channel. The fleet was composed of around 130 ships, 8,000 sailors and 18,000 soldiers, and bore 1,500 brass guns and 1,000 iron guns; it took two days for the last vessel to leave port. It contained 28 real warships: twenty galleons, four galleys and four galleasses; the remainder of the heavy vessels mainly consisted of armed carracks and hulks; also 34 light ships were present. In the Spanish Netherlands an army of 30,000 men awaited its arrival, the plan being to use the fleet to convey the continental army on barges to a place near London; the Spanish admirals probably intended to first land the ship-bound force in the west of England, though this had been explicitly forbidden by Philip. All told, it was envisaged to muster 55,000 men, a huge army for that time. On the day of the fleet's departure, Elizabeth's ambassador in the Netherlands, Dr Valentine Dale, met Parma's representatives to begin peace negotiations. On July 17 negotiations were abandoned, and the English fleet stood prepared – though ill-supplied – at Plymouth, awaiting news of Spanish movements, after having in vain tried to intercept the Armada in the Bay of Biscay.
The Armada was delayed by bad weather, forcing the four galleys and one galleon to leave the fleet, and was not sighted in England until July 19, when it appeared off St Michael's Mount in Cornwall. The news was, albeit slowly, conveyed to London by a system of beacons that had been constructed along the length of the south coast of England. During the evening the English fleet was trapped in Plymouth harbour by the incoming tide. The Spanish convened a council of war, where it was proposed to ride into the harbour on the tide and incapacitate the English ships at anchor and from there to attack England; but Medina Sidonia declined this advice, and that same night 55 ships of the English fleet set out in pursuit from Plymouth under the command of Lord Howard of Effingham, with as Vice Admiral Sir Francis Drake. Howard gave Drake, being the more experienced naval commander, some control during the campaign. Rear Admiral was Sir John Hawkins.
The next night, in order to execute their "line ahead" attack, the English tacked upwind of the Armada, thus gaining the weather gage, a significant advantage. Over the next week there followed two inconclusive engagements, at Eddystone and the Isle of Portland. Two Spanish ships, the carrack Rosario and the galleon San Salvador, were abandoned after having been severely damaged by accidents; they were taken by the English who thereby captured a large supply of much-needed gunpowder. At the Isle of Wight the Armada had the opportunity to create a temporary base in protected waters and wait for word from Parma's army. In a full-scale attack, the English fleet broke into four groups – Martin Frobisher now also being given command over a squadron – with Drake coming in with a large force from the south. At the critical moment Medina Sidonia sent reinforcements south and ordered the Armada back in to open sea to avoid sandbanks. There were no secure harbours nearby, so the Armada was compelled to make for Calais, without regard to the readiness of Parma's army.
On July 27, the Armada anchored off Calais in a tightly packed defensive crescent formation, not far from Dunkirk, where Parma's army, reduced by diseases to 16,000, was expected to be waiting, ready to join the fleet in barges sent from ports along the Flemish coast. Communications had proven to be far more difficult than anticipated, and it only now transpired that, after months of strangely desultory preparation of transport barges, this army had yet to be assembled in port, a process which would take at least six days, while Medina Sidonia waited at anchor; and that Dunkirk was blockaded by a Dutch fleet of thirty flyboats under Lieutenant-Admiral Justin of Nassau. Parma desired that the Armada send its light petaches to drive away the Dutch, but Medina Sidonia could not do this because he feared to need these ships himself for his protection. There was no deep-water port where the fleet might shelter – always acknowledged as a major difficulty for the expedition – and the Spanish found themselves vulnerable as night drew on. At midnight on July 28 the English set alight eight fireships, sacrificing regular warships by filling them with pitch, brimstone, some gunpowder, and tar, and cast them downwind among the closely-anchored vessels of the Armada. The Spanish feared that these uncommonly large fireships were 'hellburners' which continued into the next century. In the words of Geoffrey Parker, by 1588 'the capital ships of the Elizabethan navy constituted the most powerful battlefleet afloat anywhere in the world.' However, historians now recognize that the Armada campaign did not have lasting consequences upon the naval balance of power. In fact it led the Spanish Navy undergoing a major reform which helped it to continue dominating European waters well into the next century.
In England, the boost to national pride lasted for years, and Elizabeth's legend persisted and grew well after her death. The repulse of Spanish naval might gave heart to the Protestant cause across Europe, and the belief that God was behind the Protestant cause was shown by the striking of commemorative medals that bore the inscription, He blew with His winds, and they were scattered. There were also more lighthearted medals struck, such as the one with the play on Julius Caesar's words: Venit, Vidit, Fugit (he came, he saw, he fled). The victory was acclaimed by the English as their greatest since Agincourt.
English Armada However, an attempt to press home the English advantage failed the following year, when a comparable English fleet sailed against Spain in 1589 during the Norris-Drake Expedition or English Armada which met a similar fate, limping home after being held by the Spanish on the coasts of Portugal.
The supply of troops from England to Philip II's enemies in the Netherlands and France continued, but with dwindling success. High seas buccaneering against the Spanish also persisted but with little success. The Anglo-Spanish War thereafter generally favoured Spain. It was not until half a century later that the Dutch interrupted Spanish dominance at sea at the Battle of the Downs in 1639. The strength of Spain's tercios – the dominant fighting unit in European land campaigns for over a century – was likewise broken by the French at the Battle of Rocroi in 1643.
Other meanings- Spanish Armada (Armada Española) can also describe the modern navy of Spain, part of the Spanish Armed Forces. The Spanish navy has participated in a number of military engagements, including the dispute over the Isla Perejil. This is not a reference to the Armada above – "armada" simply means "navy" in Spanish.
- In Tennis slang, Spanish Armada is used to refer to the group of highly ranked Spanish players, such as Rafael Nadal, Felix Mantilla, Albert Portas, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Carlos Moyá, and others.
See also
Literature - Geoffrey Parker, 'The Dreadnought Revolution of Tudor England', Mariner's Mirror, 82 (1996): 269-300.
- Armada (1988) ISBN 0-575-03729-6
- A History of England, from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth, Edward Cheyney ISBN 1428629106
- The Armada, Garrett Mattingly (1959 and repr.) Houghton Mifflin, Boston
- England and the Spanish Armada (1990) ISBN 0-7317-0127-5
- The Expedition of Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake to Spain and Portugal, 1589, edited by RB Wernham ISBN 0-566-05578-3
- The Enterprise of England (1988) ISBN 0-86299-476-4
- The Return of the Armadas: the Later Years of the Elizabethan War against Spain, 1595–1603, RB Wernham ISBN 0-19-820443-4
- Sir Francis Drake: the Queen's Pirate, Harry Kelsey ISBN 0-300-07182-5
- The Spanish Armada, Michael Lewis (1960). First published Batsford, 1960 – republished Pan, 1966
- The Spanish Armada, C. Martin & G. Parker. (1988) ISBN 0-241-12125-6
- The Spanish Armada: the Experience of the War in 1588, Felipe Fernández-Armesto ISBN 0-19-822926-7
- The voyage of the Armada (1981) ISBN 0-00-211575-1
- Richard Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors vols. 2 & 3 (London, 1885–1890)
- John O'Donovan (ed.) Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters (1851)
- Cyril Falls Elizabeth's Irish Wars (1950; reprint London, 1996) ISBN 0-09-477220-7
- T.P.Kilfeather Ireland: Graveyard of the Spanish Armada (Anvil Books, 1967)
- Winston Graham The Spanish Armadas (1972; reprint 2001) ISBN 0-14-139020-4
- The Prince, Nicolo Machiavelli – numerous editions, including ISBN 1-85326-306-0
- Historic Bourne etc., J.J.Davies (1909)
- Chambers Biographical Dictionary, J.O.Thorne. (1969) SBN [sic] 550-16001-9
- Dutch Republic and the links from it give an insight into the politics in the Netherlands which ran parallel with political developments in England.
- BBC-ZDF etc TV coproduction Natural History of Europe
- Discovery Civilization Battlefield Detectives – What Sank The Armada?
- The Atlas of the Crusades, Jonathan Riley-Smith. (1999) ISBN 0192853643.
Bibliography - From Merciless Invaders: The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Alexander McKee, Souvenir Press, London, 1963. Second edition, Grafton Books, London, 1988.
- The Armada, Garrett Mattingly, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1959
- The Spanish Armadas, Winston Graham, Dorset Press, New York, 1972.
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