Spanish Armada
Template:Battlebox The Spanish Armada of Great/Grand Armada (Old Spanish: Grande y Felicísima Armada, "large and most fortunate fleet"; but called by the English, with ironic intention, la Armada Invencible, "the Invincible Fleet") was the largest fleet to date, sent by the Catholic King Philip II of Spain in 1588 in a failed attempt to bring an end to his war with England by forcing the English government to a peace advantageous to Spain. It was the largest battle of the Anglo-Spanish War, the first of several invasion attempts in the course of the war, and one of the most famous episodes in English history. The Spanish fleet was scattered by an English fire ship attack in the Battle of Gravelines, battered by storms, and driven back to Spain. Although there were several larger "Spanish Armadas," the term generally refers to the fleet assembled in 1588 because a large part of it was scattered and destroyed by a hurricane on its return.
Causes
Philip's motives were both religious and political. In Mary's reign, he had been king consort of England, when the queen had seen fit to have a number of heretics burned at the stake in order to exert her authority in matters of conscience. This experience proved a strong incentive to the English in resisting what they called Papistry, which led to an alliance with the Dutch Estates when they rebelled against the authority of Philip II in the Spanish Netherlands. At this time, Elizabeth I of England was regarded by much of Catholic Europe as a bastard and a usurper of the crown of England. Philip was antagonised by her refusal to return England to the fold of the church; in addition, he and the Holy See were concerned at the reduction in their incomes owing to the increasing separation of northern Europe from their influence.
In 1570 Pope Pius V issued an encyclical against Elizabeth I, excommunicating her (Pope Pius V. Regnans in execelsis, Feb 25, 1570):
"...she has commanded the books containing manifest heresy [the Holy Bible] should be distributed throughout the whole kingdom...we are necessarily compelled to take up against her the weapons of justice... we declare the aforesaid Elizabeth to be a heretic and an abettor of heretics, and we declare her, together with her supporters.. to have incurred the sentence of excommunication and to be cut off from the unity of the body of Christ."
Three months later a Papal Bull was issued against Elizabeth giving special licence to her subjects to take up arms against her, absolving Roman Catholics in advance from their sins in so doing (Damnatio et Ecommunicatio Elizabetae Reginae Angliae, &c. Datum Romae, &c., 1570, 5 cal. Maii, Pontificatus Nostri Anno 5):
"..Elizabeth, the pretended Queen of England, a slave of wickedness, lending thereunto a helping hand, with whom, as in a sanctuary the most pernicious of all men have found a refuge. The very woman having seized on the kingdom, and monstrously usurping the supreme place of the Head of the Church in all England, and the chief authority and jurisdiction thereof, has again brought back the said kingdom into miserable destruction, which was then newly reduced to the Catholic faith and good fruits.... We do out of the fullness of our Apostolic power declare the aforesaid Elizabeth, being a heretic, and favourer of heretics, and her adherents in the matters aforesaid, to have incurred sentence of anathema, and to be cut off from the unity of the body of Christ. And moreover we declare her to be deprived of her pretended title to the Kingdom aforesaid, and of all dominion, dignity, and privilege whatsoever... And we do command and interdict all and every, the nobleman, subjects, people, and others aforesaid, that they presume not to obey her or her admonitions, mandates, and laws; and those who shall do the contrary we do strike with the sentence of anathema."
Three years later in 1573, 15 years before the Armada set sail a treaty was signed by the King of Spain and the Pope to invade England and exterminate the protestant heresy. The building of the Armada was commenced in 1584, three years before the execution of Mary Stuart Mary I of Scotland in 1587, following of her conviction for conspiracy in the attempted assassination of Elizabeth.
To King Philip of Spain, the armada was to be a glorious crusade against the enemies of the faith, to return England to the fold of Catholicism under Rome's blessing. The Bull had solemnly conferred Elizabeth's kingdom upon Philip II, "to have and to hold as tributary and feudatory to the Papal Chair." The religious antagonism was increased by economic competition in trade with the Spanish Empire in America, and by privateering and piracy.
The matter of England's disruption (along with France) of the annual bullion-run by the Spanish treasure fleet from Peru and Mexico to the port of Seville in Spain was of critical importance to Philip. The Spanish were also vexed by the matter of England's direct interference in the revolt against Spanish rule in the Netherlands. The purpose of the armada expedition was to put a stop to these matters, whether by invasion of England or by the credible threat of such invasion.
England had with circumspection, joined the Eighty Years' War on the side of the Dutch Protestant United Provinces, led in revolt against Spain by William I of Orange. Their territory was roughly the modern provinces of Friesland, North and South Holland and Utrecht. A small English force had been sent to The Netherlands in their support and was present at the Battle of Zutphen in 1586.
On 29 July 1587, Pope Sixtus V granted Papal authority to overthrow Elizabeth, who had been declared a heretic by Pope Pius V, and place whomever he chose on the throne of England. Pope Sixtus had promised a contribution of a million gold crowns towards the expenses of the armada, but when he saw to what end it had come, he refused to pay a single ducat. In vain Phillip urged that the Pope had instigated him to the attempt, that the expedition had been undertaken in the sacred cause of the church, and that the loss ought to be borne mutually. Sixtus would not hear him. He could not be expected, he said, to give a million of money for an Armada which had accomplished nothing, and was now at the bottom of the sea. (Oott. Libt., Titus, B.2. Strype, Annals, vol iii., p.522)
At the launch of the Armada "a special mass for the success of the Spanish Armada to crush protestant England" was held, along with a special blessing upon the fleet by the Catholic Hierarchy of Spain:
- "On April 25th he [the Duke of Medina Sidonia- the commander-in chief of the Armada] went to the Cathedral of Lisbon to take from its altar the blessed standard of the expedition, as an announcement that it was about to sail and an advertisement as to the holy nature of the mission. Every man who was to sail with it had confessed and communicated.... Now the Captain General went solemnly to the Cathedral, accompanied by His Most Catholic Majesty Viceroy, the Cardinal Archduke. The Archbishop himself said mass and pronounced a general benediction on the Enterprise. The standard was lifted from the altar and borne across the Plaza Mayor to the Dominican Convent where the duke himself laid it on that altar in token of personal dedication. Then the banner was borne back between kneeling lines of soldiers and sailors to whom friars read the papal absolution, and indulgences granted to all partakers on this most holy crusade." (The Defeat of the Spanish Armada by Garret Mattingly, page 207.)
Battle plan
The Duke of Parma, who was commanding Spain's army in the Spanish-controlled Netherlands, was to assemble an invading force on the North Sea coast. Parma's only means of transporting troops across the English Channel was a fleet of vulnerable barges. Therefore, the Armada was to travel North from Spanish-controlled Lisbon and meet Parma's army in order to protect its passage. Command of the Armada was given to Alonso de Guzman El Bueno, 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia, a soldier with no naval experience. His instructions from Philip were detailed and strict, in contrast to Queen Elizabeth I's policy that her naval commanders be responsible for military decisions.
The Armada invasion plan was flawed from the start in the unworkably precise timing and communication that it demanded between Medina Sidonia and Parma, as well as in the near-absence of deep-water ports accessible to Philip on the north-western European coastline for a fleet of the Armada's size and composition. However, a rendezvous with Parma was feasible if the Armada could maintain position in the English Channel near Parma's scattered barges long enough for him to assemble his soldiers for battle. Many of the dangers were well understood. Heated disputes between the Spanish admiral, Marquis of Santa Cruz of Mudela (Alvaro de Bazan - who died before he could take charge), and Philip II over organisation, delays and details marred preparations.
The English plan was implemented by a new fleet, built by John Hawkins, consisting of light, manuverable ships equipped with long-range cannon. The English would then execute a "line ahead" or single-file formation, sailing by the enemy, landing broadsides, while remaining beyond the range of answering fire. Unsurprisingly the Spanish put their faith in the tried and proven method of a combination of a single close in ship disabling cannonade with both heavy guns and anti personel weapons, followed by a boarding by their experienced marine corps - hence their preference for heavier ships able to better withstand a barrage and carry a large boarding party as well as the large amount of provisions needed for a long stay out at sea.
Execution
On May 28, 1588 the Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, began to set sail from Lisbon heading for the English Channel. At this time the English fleet was prepared and waiting in Plymouth for news of Spanish movements. It took until May 30 for all ships to leave port, and on the same day Elizabeth's ambassador Dr Valentine Dale met Parma's representatives to begin peace negotiations. It was not until July 17 that the peace negotiations were wholly abandoned.
The English Channel
The Armada, having been delayed by bad weather, was not sighted until July 19. This occurred off The Lizard, Cornwall, but a sequence of beacons had been constructed the length of the south coast of England, so that the news was known in London within two days. The Armada followed the coast as far as Plymouth, where the 55 ships of the English fleet had set sail on the night of the 19th. The English were nominally under the command of Lord Howard of Effingham (later Earl of Nottingham). However, he acknowledged Sir Francis Drake, technically his subordinate, as the more experienced naval commander and gave him effective control. In order to execute their "line ahead" attack the English tacked behind the Armada to place them upwind of the Spanish, thus gaining a significant manoeuvring advantage.
Over the next week there followed two inconclusive engagements, at Eddystone and Portland, Dorset. However, at the Isle of Wight there was an opportunity for the Armada to create a temporary base in protected waters and wait for word from Parma's army. In a full on attack the English fleet broke into four groups with Drake coming in with a large force from the south. At that critical moment Medina-Sidonia sent reinforcements south and forced the Armada back into the open sea in order to avoid sandbanks. This left two Spanish wrecks near the Isle of Wight and with no safe harbours forced the Armada to Calais whether the Spanish army was ready or not.
At the same time, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester was assembling a force of 4,000 soldiers at Tilbury Fort, Essex, to defend the estuary of the River Thames in the event of a Spanish landing. This and other coastal defences were rendered unnecessary, when the English naval battle plan proved effective in preventing the Armada from protecting Parma's invasion barges.
In 1587 the Earl of Leicester had been recalled from the Netherlands where he had been commanding officer of the English forces. Command of the English force remaining there fell to Lord Willoughby. Following the defeat of the Armada, he was given credit for having hindered Parma's efforts to get his invasion force together quickly. How far it was really effective is not clear: the unit is said to have numbered 1,500. It is likely that the English presence will have made the independent Dutch more sympathetic to the English cause. However, they were already interested, as they had better information about the approaching armada than Parma did and it was not wholly clear that the fleet was not coming to attack them. The difference in effectiveness between the intelligence and communication systems of the Independent Dutch and the Spanish may have lain in the help and hindrance afforded by the English to the respective parties. Walsingham had already shown that he had recognized the importance of intelligence.
Calais and the fire ships
On July 27, the Spanish anchored off Calais, not far from Parma's waiting army of 16,000 in Dunkirk, in a crescent-shaped, tightly-packed defensive formation. They were compelled to do this by the lack of a deep-water port in France or the Low Countries where the Armada could seek shelter - a major oversight on Philip's part, although most European ports were not designed to accommodate a fleet like the Armada in the first place. At midnight of July 28, the English set eight pitch and gunpowder-filled ships alight and sent them downwind into the closely-anchored Spanish vessels. Panic ensued, damaging morale but more importantly scattering the Spanish ships as they cut anchor. The lighter English vessels could now engage them on more even terms.
Battle of Gravelines
Gravelines is now in France but in 1588 it was in Flanders, part of the Spanish Netherlands, close to the border with France. It was the nearest Spanish territory to England. Medina-Sidonia tried to re-form his fleet off Gravelines, but was reluctant to sail further east owing to the danger from the shoals off Flanders from which the Dutch allies of England had removed the sea-marks. He had expected Parma to arrive promptly with troops in small vessels from ports along the Flemish coast. However, communications had been much more difficult than anticipated so that Parma had had no notice of his arrival. He needed another six days to bring his troops up with the Spanish fleet. Meanwhile Medina-Sidonia was left waiting off Calais and Gravelines.
The English had learned much of the Armada's strengths and weaknesses during the skirmishes in the English Channel. That done, they had carefully conserved their heavy shot and powder. The English attacked on July 29. Eleven Spanish ships were lost or damaged (though the most seaworthy Atlantic-class vessels escaped largely unscathed), and the Spaniards suffered nearly 2,000 casualties from the battle as well as illness and exposure, before the English fleet ran out of ammunition. The Spaniards' heavy guns were unwieldy and their heavy guns' crews were not trained to re-load during a battle. Consequently, given the greater manoeuvrability of the English fleet, it was possible to provoke the Spanish to fire but to stay out of effective range until the heavy shot was loosed before closing and firing repeated and damaging broadsides into the Spanish ships. The English manoeuvrability too, enabled them to maintain a position to windward so that the heeling Spaniards' hulls were exposed to damage below the water-line.
English casualties were much lighter, initially in the low hundreds from the battle itself, but a raging typhus epidemic soon swept throughout the defensive fleet, killing thousands of English sailors. Although the Gravelines engagement itself was largely an indecisive stalemate, it afforded the English defenders some breathing space as Medina Sidonia, unaware of the scarcity of English ammunition, soon directed the Armada northward, away from the Flemish coast, pursued by the bluffing English fleet with its empty shot lockers. The Armada was unable to re-form to return and was soon too far away to beat back even had it been possible to communicate the order to do so.
In 2002 Dr Colin Martin of St Andrews University claimed that many Spanish ships carried cannon shot that was the wrong size for their cannon. The equipment had been gathered from a wide variety of sources in the Spanish Hapsburg lands which were world-wide and in Europe, were scattered between the Heel of Italy, southern Portugal and the Ems estuary. The notion of standardization had barely been explored at this stage. However, the Spaniards' main difficulty was that their thinking had been directed towards boarding and hand to hand fighting. The English knew this and avoided compliance with such tactics. By the Gravelines stage, they also knew the gunnery implications.
Pursuit
The day after Gravelines, the wind changed, enabling Medina Sidonia to move the Armada northward (away from the French coast). The English pursued and harried the Spanish fleet, preventing it from properly reforming and returning to escort Parma, but again ammunition proved the limiting factor and the English were compelled to disengage. The Spaniards gave up against the deadly harrying of the larger English fleet. On 12 August, Howard called a halt to the chase in the latitude of the Firth of Forth.
Tilbury speech
Meanwhile, the threat of invasion from the Netherlands had not been discounted. On August 8, Elizabeth went to Tilbury to encourage her forces, and the next day gave to them what is probably her most famous speech:
- "... I am come amongst you as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle to live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.
- I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too..."
In fact, Parma did not cross the English Channel, and the troops at Tilbury were disbanded later that month.
Return to Spain
The Spanish fleet sailed around Scotland and Ireland into the North Atlantic. The ships were beginning to show wear from the long voyage and the crews were running short on supplies. Shortly after reaching the latitude of Ireland, the Armada ran straight into a hurricane. To this day, it remains one of the northernmost hurricanes on record. The hurricane scattered the fleet far and wide.
Many of the ships wrecked on the shores of Ireland. Some of the crews were slaughtered by English armies in the area. Others took refuge with the Irish, who were sympathetic to the Catholic cause. Contrary to popular belief, the Black Irish did not originate from these Spanish sailors.
Records are incomplete, but it is believed that between a third and a half of the Spanish fleet returned to Spain. Many of the men were near death from disease, as the conditions were very cramped and most of the ships ran out of food and water. Many more of the sailors and soldiers died in Spain or on hospital ships in Spanish harbours from diseases they contracted during the voyage.
Consequences
The Armada was forced to return to Spain by sailing around the northern coasts of Scotland and Ireland; a dangerous voyage during which the Armada was buffeted by severe September storms that caused enormous damage. It is reckoned that 5,000 men died, whether by drowning and starvation or by execution at the hands of English authority in Ireland; the reports from Ireland abound with strange accounts of brutality and survival, and attest on occasion to the brilliance of Spanish seamanship (see 5,000 Men Dead (1969)). In the end, 67 ships and around 10,000 men survived. It was reported that, when Philip II learnt of the result of the expedition, he declared, "I sent my ships to fight against the English, not against the elements".
English losses were minimal and none of their ships was sunk, but the English sailors were themselves decimated by the deadly typhus epidemic, as well as a possibly concurrent outbreak of dysentery, which killed an estimated 6,000–8,000 soldiers according to varying estimates. English sailors also suffered from exposure and a demoralising financial dispute after England's persistent fiscal shortfalls left many of the Armada defenders unpaid for months, in contrast to the assistance given by the Spanish authorities to the Armada's survivors.
The victory was still regarded by the English as their greatest since Agincourt. The effects on national pride lasted for years, and those on Elizabeth's legend persisted well after her death. Dignitaries around Europe had to acknowledge England as a military power in its own right, accorded a respect not seen since English triumphs in the Hundred Years' War with France. The Armada's defeat gave great heart to the embattled Protestant cause across Europe. The Armada engagement also revolutionised naval warfare and provided valuable seafaring experience for English oceanic mariners, but England's indisputable dominance over the seas did not begin until more than two centuries later (Battle of Trafalgar, 1805).
The Armada's defeat enabled the English to persist in their high seas buccaneering against the Spanish and to continue sending troops to assist Philip II's enemies in the Netherlands and France, but with decreasing success. It was not a decisive battle. Paradoxically, Spain drew new vigour: her seamen learned their lesson, and she built a greatly improved war navy that was finally able to repel the buccaneer attacks against the treasure fleet.
In 1589 an "English Armada" under the command of Drake and Sir John Norris was dispatched to torch the Spanish Atlantic navy, which had largely survived the Armada encounter and was moored in Santander and San Sebastian in northern Spain, as well as to capture the incoming Spanish treasure fleet and expel the Spanish from Portugal, which Philip had ruled since 1580. Like its Spanish predecessor, the English Armada failed in all its objectives. The English invading forces were repelled and similarly beleaguered by unrealistic planning and storms, suffering heavy casualties and imposing severe financial losses upon the Elizabethan treasury. The limitations of the naval power of the era was demonstrated again by Spain's greatly improved navy, when two fleets sent to help Ireland's Catholics, were dispersed and forced back by fierce Atlantic storms in 1596 and 1597.
England's treasure was wasted in a brutal war in Ireland (the Nine Years' War, 1595-1603), which was fitfully supported by Spain and proved the most expensive military campaign waged by the English for over a hundred years; such was the expense, that Elizabeth's government was drawn to the brink of bankruptcy.
In 1595, a Spanish infantry force of about 400 men landed in Cornwall, where they forced a much larger English militia to retreat in panic. They then collected supplies, burned a number of towns and even conducted a mass, before setting sail for home, when they evaded a fleet under the command of Sir Walter Raleigh.
England would be on the losing side of most of the remaining battles with Spain, and was plunged into debt with its colonial ambitions frustrated. Spain reached the climax of its military power, both at sea and on land, during the half century after the Armada defeat. Its long dominance at sea was only broken by the Dutch at the Battle of the Downs (1639); and the strength of its tercios, the dominant fighting unit in European land campaigns for over a century, was broken by the French at the Battle of Rocroi (1643).
By the end of the long war with England in the Treaty of London of 1604 Spain had achieved some of its aims that had originally been intended by the failed "knockout" blow of the Armada, but England remained true to its protestant revolution and was now free to pursue its commercial interests in North America. The failure of the Armada to win a quick victory against England meant that Philip would not be able to concentrate his forces on recovering the Netherlands, a situation worsened by the war with France a few years later.
Two further wars between England and Spain were waged in the 17th century.
Point of view
There is a significant discrepancy between the Spanish and English/Dutch Wikipedia articles on this historical event; the English and Dutch versions decribe it as a military victory over the Spanish while the Spanish version (see Grande y Felicísima Armada, especially the Tergiversaciones históricas section) describes it as a Spanish loss mostly to weather conditions, expressed by king Philip II of Spain as "Mandé a mis barcos a luchar contra los ingleses, no contra los elementos" (I sent my ships to fight the English, not the elements.).
See also Black Legend.
References
- A History of England, from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth by Edward Cheyney ISBN 000333496
- The Spanish Armada: the Experience of the War in 1588 by Felipe Fernández-Armesto ISBN 0198229267
- Sir Francis Drake: the Queen's Pirate by Harry Kelsey ISBN 0300071825
- The Defeat of the Spanish Armada by Garrett Mattingly ISBN 0395083664
- The Expedition of Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake to Spain and Portugal, 1589, edited by RB Wernham ISBN 0566055783
- The Return of the Armadas : the Later Years of the Elizabethan War against Spain, 1595-1603 by RB Wernham ISBN 0198204434
- The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli. numerous editions including ISBN 1-85326-306-0
- Historic Bourne etc. by J.J.Davies (1909)
- Chambers Biographical Dictionary by J.O.Thorne. (1969) SBN [sic] 550-16001-9
- The Spanish Armada by C.Martin & G.Parker. (1988) ISBN 0-241-12125-6
- United Provinces 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
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 Felix Mantilla, Albert Portas, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Carlos Moyá, and others.
External links
- Top 10 myths and muddles about the Spanish Armada, history's most confused and misunderstood battle, by Wes Ulm, Harvard University.
