Spanish Armada

battle_name=Battle of Gravelines

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.

Related Topics:
May 28 - 1588 - Lisbon - English Channel - Plymouth - May 30 - Valentine Dale - July 17

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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 had acknowledged Sir Francis Drake, technically his subordinate, as the more experienced naval commander and given 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.

Related Topics:
July 19 - Plymouth - Lord Howard of Effingham - Sir Francis Drake

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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.

Related Topics:
Eddystone - Portland, Dorset - Isle of Wight

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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.

Related Topics:
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester - Tilbury Fort - River Thames

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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.

Related Topics:
1587 - Lord Willoughby - Walsingham - Intelligence

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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.

Related Topics:
July 27 - Calais - Dunkirk - July 28

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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.

Related Topics:
Gravelines - Flanders - Spanish Netherlands

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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.

Related Topics:
July 29 - Windward

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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.

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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 ] 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.

Related Topics:
Colin Martin - St Andrews University - Italy - Portugal - Ems - Estuary - Tactics - Gunnery

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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.

Related Topics:
12 August - Firth of Forth

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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:

Related Topics:
August 8 - Her most famous speech

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:"... 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.

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: 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..."

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In fact, Parma did not cross the English Channel, and the troops at Tilbury were disbanded later that month.

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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.

Related Topics:
Scotland - Ireland - Latitude - Hurricane

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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.

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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.

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