England vs The Spanish Armada: The Defeat Of The Invincible Fleet

In the summer of 1588, the affairs of England had reached a desperate juncture. A Spanish invasion fleet, said to be the largest ever assembled, was rumoured to be approaching the English coast. Against this mighty armada were ranged the stout-hearted English seamen under Drake, Frobisher and Hawkins. But at their head was a woman who was to prove she had the spirit to match the most sinister threat in this, her darkest hour. Elizabeth I, good Queen Bess. The causes of the war between England and Spain, which was to culminate in the attempted invasion by the armada, were complex and Machiavellian in the extreme. During the 16th century, three great powers strove for supremacy in Europe. The two competing Catholic powers of France and Spain alternated between bloody war and uneasy peace. Each sought the support of Protestant England. The English, however, constantly shifted their allegiances according to a variable range of political, military and religious issues. The net effect of all this was that at any given time, any two of the great powers might be allied against the third, even if they were not actually at war. In 1588, England, with the passive support of France, was at daggers drawn with Philip II of Spain. As was customary for the age, both England and Spain felt that they may just be about to receive the full support of the French. The French, of course, were happy to give that impression. On the continent, Philip of Spain had achieved political and military dominance. Spain was in the ascendant over France and she had extensive colonies in the New World, which yielded vast amounts of gold. Given her enormous economic strength, the Spanish were also able to use the new monetary power to bolster the military machinery, which was the second to none in the known world. There were, however, two constant thorns in this Spanish side. Firstly, there was the running sore of the religious wars in the Low Countries. The Protestant Dutch had long refused to yield to the Spanish armies and the conflict, which was draining the Spanish coffers, showed no signs of ending. Spain should have been able to beat the rebels. Spain was big, ugly, rich, very rich, thanks to the American colonies and all the silver and gold which was coming from South America. But there were problems with logistics a long way from Spain and, to make matters worse, in the 1570s, England began actively supporting the rebels. Equally irritating for Spain were the constant attentions of the English pirate adventurers, such as Drake and Hawkins, who preyed upon the vital bullion convoys en route to Spain from the New World, disrupting her trade and weakening the sinews of war in the Low Countries. Drake was the most famous Englishman of his time. He was quite possibly the most famous commoner in the world by 1588. He had circumnavigated the globe, the first Englishman to do so. He had launched the highly successful raid on Cádiz in 1587, at which preparations for the Armada were completely scotched for a whole year. His fame was really worldwide. He was certainly well known to everyone who sailed in the Spanish navies. Despite these difficulties at sea, an able and gifted Spanish commander, the Prince of Parma, had begun to tip the balance in the grisly contest in the Low Countries. The Spanish tertiaries under Parma, at this time, were considered to be the greatest fighting machine on Earth. The Spanish tertiaries were feared and successful in Europe, because for the first time they were an effective combination of large bodies of men of different types. They were called tertiaries because you had three different types of soldiers. You had pikemen, you had musketeers or arquebusiers, men armed with firearms, and squads of men armed with other weapons as well, for various specialist tasks. Now all of these weapons had existed before, but there tended to be a feeling that they didn't speak to each other. The armoured knights looked down upon the crossbowmen and the crossbowmen thought the armoured knights were arrogant upstarts and wouldn't speak to them. The thing about the tertiary was it was a combined all-arms force. Philip of Spain, therefore, bent all his mental energies towards the difficult question of how to transport a Spanish army safely to England in the face of a very strong and active English navy. Even the coffers of a nation as mighty as Spain were insufficient to launch a fleet of the size which would be required to convey an army from Spain directly to England. As we have seen, Philip's shortage of money was exacerbated by the actions of the English privateers. The Spanish king therefore decided rather than embark his entire army from Spain, he would send a very strong naval force with comparatively few soldiers on board to rendezvous with the army of Flanders. The fleet would then escort them safely over the short crossing to England. Under this plan, the Prince of Palma would therefore have the relatively simple task of bringing together a large fleet of small flat-bottomed craft to make the crossing of the channel under the protection of the Armada sent from Spain. The Armada essentially was an escort manoeuvre. It's like the D-Day invasion backwards. The fleet is there to protect the army. Philip appears to have thought that the English wouldn't put up a great deal of resistance. There is not a lot of instruction to Medina Sedona, the Armada's commander, on how to fight the English fleet. He's told what tactics they will employ, but Philip leaves it very much up to him what to do about them. Similarly, the Duke of Palma is not really told how to conquer England. In some ways that was fair, because Palma was the greatest captain general of his time, and it was up to him to make plans, Philip thought, once he got onto land. Palma had been instructed to form an army of 30,000 men and make the necessary preparations to transport that force over the channel under the protection of the Armada. Because of the huge size of the force he was to raise, Palma had to rely on contingents drawn from all parts of the Spanish Empire. Palma tended to win battles, but once again the problem was actually getting the enemy to oblige by accepting a battle, and in that he wasn't too successful, because money was starting to dry up by this time. Although Spain was able to get a lot of silver and gold from the Indies, it wasn't much use to the Spanish army in Flanders if that gold was sitting in Spain. It was not just Palma, however, who was to be dogged by supply problems. In anticipation of the actions of the Armada, Sir Francis Drake had launched a number of successful pre-emptive strikes against Spain. In particular, he had been very successful in his attack on Cadiz. This relentless campaign against Spain's shipping played havoc with the preparation for the Armada. For example, during the Cadiz attack, he had destroyed a huge number of seasoned barrel staves for the manufacture of storage casks. To modern ears, that does not necessarily sound like a major strategic blow, but when one considers that everything from water to food to gunpowder had to be stored and transported in barrels, this act of destruction was to represent a major blow against the Armada. Once it finally set sail, the Spanish fleet was to be constantly bedevilled by shortages of provisions and more crucially, ammunition. The ability of sailing ships to bring about a successful battle is dependent on a large number of factors. However majestic these vessels were, they were entirely dependent upon the direction of the wind and literally could only sail according to which direction the wind was blowing. This factor was to have an enormous bearing on the fate of the Spanish Armada. The crucial thing in naval warfare of this period was the wind gauge. If you had the wind behind you, you could choose where to go because the wind would blow you there. If you didn't have the wind gauge, you had a problem. Sailing ships cannot sail directly into the wind. What they can do is they can sail across the wind, which is called tacking, and so you can make headway into the wind by sailing in diagonals roughly towards it. The English ships were very good at sailing close to the wind. That's where the expression close to the wind comes from. The Spanish were mystified as how the English were able to gain the wind gauge of them. Simply it seemed by sailing to almost any quarter of the wind that they wanted to and that was to play a major part in the battle because essentially the English didn't want to close with the Spanish. They didn't want to fight hand to hand and being able to take the wind gauge when they chose, being able to sail close to the wind, enabled the English to choose the actions occurred. Although the preparation of the army of Flanders was proceeding with reasonable pace, Palmer was already concerned over the high incidence of mortality among the men, crammed into the unhygienic camps where they awaited the arrival of Sidonia and his armada. The ships which carried the Spanish armada in 1588 were very similar in design and construction to those of the English fleet. There were about 24 frontline warships in the English fleet and about the same number in the Spanish fleet and these were the ships that would actually do the bulk of the fighting. The big legend about the armada is that the Spanish ships were very large and that the English ships were very small. Now that's true in as much as Spanish ships were built high. They had very high castles at the front and back of the ship. This is because the Spanish again were aiming to fight hand to hand and being up high in a hand-to-hand fight was a big advantage. Because the English weren't going to fight hand to hand they didn't need that advantage so they built their ships low. They were interested in speed, they were interested in manoeuvrability and they were interested in a long ship which could have a lot of guns along its flank. We are fortunate today in that one major example of the wreck of a 16th century warship remains for study by historians. The Mary Rose, one of Henry VIII's fleet founded in 1548. This is a mock-up of a gun deck on the Mary Rose and it gives a very good idea of what life on a Tudor warship or a Spanish warship would have been during the armada campaign. The English were aiming their shots at the hulls of the Spanish ship. A cannonball striking the hull of a ship like this would send wooden splinters hurling across the deck. Anyone who was caught by such a splinter would probably be cut in half. There were some Spanish ships in the final battle who were seen with their gun ports running with blood because there were so many casualties on board. On the 9th of May 1588 orders were finally given for the armada to set sail from Lisbon and begin its slow progress up the coast towards England. The Spaniards were under the command of the Duke of Medina Sedona who was a brave soldier but a less than capable admiral as the events were to prove. He suffered constantly from seasickness which often incapacitated him at crucial moments, a far from ideal situation. The Duke of Medina Sedona was chosen for three reasons. First of all because he was a first rank Spanish grandee. That meant that the other nobility who were going to take part in the armada expedition would naturally take his orders no matter what they were. Secondly he was an extremely wealthy man although much in debt at the time and he could be expected to spend some of his own money helping to pay for the armada preparations. Thirdly Medina Sedonia did have considerable knowledge of organizing naval expeditions. One factor which lay totally outside Medina Sedonia's control was the weather which was very unkind to the armada. Poor winds meant the ships made very slow progress indeed. In fact during the first 13 days at sea the armada had covered only 161 sea miles leaving the fleet still short of the coast of England 50 miles south of the Isle of White. The Spanish had developed on the basis of galley warfare in the Mediterranean where they'd been very successful. So they form a situation a formation which is really more of a arrowhead although the English see it from behind as a crescent and what they're looking to do is they're expecting the English to be in front of them blocking the channel. So they have their ships side by side and they're intending to sail up to the English fire one broadside close in grapple and board. On the 29th of July 1588 Captain Thomas Fleming aboard the Golden Hind brought the long awaited news of the armada's approach to the English fleet in Plymouth. Immediately the English ships under Lord Howard of Effingham began to prepare for battle. When Drake was informed of the approach of the armada legend has it that he insisted on first finishing his game of bowls so confident was he of defeating his opponent at his leisure. Whatever Drake may have done in reality there is no dispute that the first contact between the two fleets came on the 31st of July. The English sailors were overroared by the sheer scale of the Spanish fleet. Sailing in a huge crescent formation up the English channel was some 128 warships and galleys arrayed in a crest formation. Around this huge formation the English ships exhibited extreme caution. The first thing that happens in the armada is that the Spanish approach and the English fleet sails round them. This is very confusing for the Spanish because they obviously are aiming to sail up the channel and they expect the English to try and stop them but the English have suddenly gone to a lot of trouble to get behind them. What the English are looking to do is close in and use their ship smashing guns. Now they have some problem with the Spanish formation because if they try and attack the weakest ships of the armada which are inside the arrowhead then they are in grave danger of being overwhelmed by the closing wings of the crescent in which case they would be involved in boarding and they have no chance if the ships come close together because the English ships don't have troops on them they cannot fight hand to hand. English shipboard guns were a good generation ahead of the Spanish ones they were much easier to handle and consequently a lot faster to reload and the quality of the gunpowder was better as well so that when it actually came to stand up fight although the English ships were in some ways smaller they could actually throw a far greater weight of metal against the Spanish ones but again having said that although they carried quite a bit of damage to the Spanish on the way up the channel they weren't able to cripple the Spanish fleet. As the two fleets could not come to grips the fighting was very much reduced to that of a series of skirmishes. Nonetheless the battleship Rosario was sufficiently damaged that it had to be left behind by the progress of the fleet. Next morning she was captured by Drake whose fearsome reputation caused the Spanish to surrender without a fight. The San Salvador was also abandoned and fell prize to Tom Fleming and the Golden Hind. As the Armada proceeded up the channel Medina Sedonia was aware that his provisions and ammunition were very low. He feared he might now be attacked by what was now obviously a far superior English force and one which was much better supplied from its home ports. He could get no reply to the various messages he sent to Parma in Flanders which only added to his unease. As the wind swung round for once in his favour he took a decision to seek safety in the port of Calais. It was to prove a disastrous choice. History does not record whether Sedonia received the reply he expected from Parma but he certainly did not receive the warships he asked for. It was probably for this reason that he took the fateful decision to put into harbour at Calais and await developments. The French at this stage were supposedly neutral but there was genuine concern among the English fleet that they would resupply the Armada. In order to prevent this it was decided that the English would launch an attack with fire ships against the Spanish vessels in the harbour. On the eve of the 7th of August eight burning English ships were carried towards the Spanish fleet on the rising tide. Although no Spanish ships were actually set alight by the burning vessels such was the confusion and terror caused that many of the Spanish ships collided with each other in their efforts to flee the harbour and the fleet was scattered into the night. Even if Sedonia had succeeded in reaching his rendezvous with the army of Flanders there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that Parma was still unprepared and could not have made the crossing in any account. The Spanish were intending to land at Cape Marget in the Thames estuary. Parma would have found his way to London blocked by the River Medway so the question really resolves on whether the army at Tilbury would have been able to cross the bridge of boats they were building and get behind the line of the Medway to block Parma's advance. If this had happened Parma would have found it very difficult to cross such a wide river while being opposed by even militia forces. He would therefore probably have to have turned south to manoeuvre around the Medway when he would have exposed his flank to the Tilbury army and met the force that was marching up the coast head on. Whatever the condition of Parma's men the Armada had recovered its cohesion after the attack of the fire ships and now began its laborious progress once more. But once the fleet was underway the Spanish galleons were again dogged by incessant English attacks who buzzed around the lumbering galleons like so many fast stinging hornets. The English now know that they have got to make their shots count. They've been joined by Seymour's squadron which has been protecting the Straits of Dover so they have 35 additional ships. Drake has honed his tactics in the run up the channel. They're going in very close. We know that they're fighting within musket shot. The Spanish are running low on ammunition for some of their guns. They are tired. They've been at sea a long time. The weather is changing. Schools disrupt their formations. They manage to get about 24 ships together to form a line of battle but the English are determined not to let them get away again. So the English go in very close. They blast away. They turn. They come back again. They blast again. Spanish tactics simply can't cope with this. They're being blown apart and there's really nothing they can do about it. To confound the Spanish distress no extra supplies had been forthcoming in Calais and many of the Spanish ships were so low on ammunition they could barely resist the English attacks. In many cases their stocks of gunpowder were completely exhausted so the great guns could not be fired leaving the ships defenseless. The English were quick to capitalize on the situation. It was now that Medina realized that the invasion of England could not be attempted. His decision was supported by Palmer on shore who was concerned by the thorough plans laid for land resistance in England. It was now time for the Spanish fleet to turn for home but even after Cydonia had taken the decision not to rendezvous with the army of Flanders, bad luck continued to dog his steps. Faced with prevailing winds which continued to blow against his favored direction of travel he was left with the only alternative of sailing the fleet completely around the British Isles and home to Spain. The armada is running north towards Scotland. They hold a council of war and they decide that when possible they will return to the channel to renew the fight but the weather won't let them. They end up north of Scotland and they decide that the only option is to head home going entirely around the British Isles. Unfortunately the problem they had was the charts. If you look at a map of Ireland it sticks out somewhat into the Atlantic. You've got two great arms. The Spanish maps didn't show the arms or the legs so when the ships parted and each decided right we will rendezvous at Carona, see you there lads, every ship to make its own speed and all parted, they all followed the course. Those ships which were well supplied, relatively undamaged and so on headed well out into the Atlantic, well away from trouble and managed to get home quite safely. Those ships which had been a bit battered about in the fighting or which had been running low on supplies because they'd been carrying horses and horses drinking an awful lot of water and so on decided to keep in by Ireland not to make such a wide detour only to discover that Ireland went rather farther out into the Atlantic than they thought which is why there's so many wrecks along the west coast of Ireland. The English had a very small garrison in Ireland. They were aware that the Armada had at least 16,000 soldiers with it. They were extremely worried that if anything like a large proportion of this land in Ireland that there would be a revolt by the native Irish. They react with extreme brutality and many of the Spanish survivors of the wrecks are murdered out of hand by the English garrison. Although very few ships were actually lost in battle against the English fleet, dozens of Spanish craft were wrecked in the terrible storms which blighted the unseasonable August of 1588. Ultimately only 65 ships of the 128 which had set sail from Spain would ever see their homelands again. The Armada was an extremely important part of English history both because the invasion was prevented and also because it established the English as the number one naval nation in Europe. They had proved themselves supreme in technology, in sailing ability. They had proved themselves the masters of Atlantic warfare and Atlantic warfare was where the future lay. Galley warfare in the Mediterranean had gone on for centuries but its day was over. Drake had proved that he could destroy galleys in Cadiz harbour. The galley stood no chance against the same ship. Now Drake had proved that the English designed warship was superior to anything that the Spanish or anyone else could put to sea and that is the foundation of English naval supremacy for the next 300 years.