2nd Spanish Armada
| 2nd Spanish Armada | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Atlantic | |
| Result | English victory[1][2][3] |
Spain
England
Philip II Martín de Padilla Diego Brochero Sancho Martínez de Leyva Carlos de Arellano Elizabeth I Robert Devereux Charles Howard Walter Raleigh24 galleons
53 armed merchant ships[4]
Total
126[5] - 140 ships
19,500 men (approx.)[6]
13 galleons
74 armed merchant vessels
12,000 men[7]
Storms/Disease:
5 galleons sunk[9]
38 other ships sunk or scuttled[6]
5,000 dead[10][11]
The 2nd Spanish Armada also known as the Spanish Armada of 1596
The Armada under the command of the
Background
Spain and England had been at war for nearly twelve years with neither side gaining the upper hand.
England had sent an armada under
The leading English
Persons noted that the point of entry for the Spanish would have been from
Philip began by ordering
Armada
Philip II placed great hope in the new Grand Armada that was being organised in Lisbon.[31] There were fifteen galleons from Castile and nine from Portugal, 53 Flemish and German boats which had been impounded, six pinnaces and one caravel, with 10,790 men.[27] From Seville 2,500 troops would depart in 30 flyboats to join the fleet in Lisbon.[32] In the north, at Vigo, a further 41 vessels of various tonnage were waiting, with around 6,000 men.[31] The Adelantado's total force consisted of 11,000 badly furnished and sick infantry and 3,000 cavalry, in addition to the sailors which numbered 5,500.[27]
Besides the
In July, the Earl of Essex had been fed reports from spies and merchants that there were forty-six ships in Lisbon and that new warships were being built at many places on the Biscay coast.[25] This information was conveyed to Queen Elizabeth but she was informed that it would not strike because of the expected autumn storms.[9] Nevertheless, preparations were made and the Navy was put on alert; reinforcements arrived to protect the Isle of Wight, Falmouth and even the mouth of the Medway where at Chatham the English fleet lay in dock.[32] The English field commander Lord Willoughby's main anxiety however was for Ireland, Scotland, and the English held Dutch Cautionary Towns such as Flushing.[28]
At the beginning of October, the Armada was still in no shape to depart. Lack of food and money as well as potential mutiny forcibly delayed the expedition which infuriated Philip.[9] The Adelantado had preparation for the Armada as his main priority but soon asked to be relieved of his command to defend himself, which Philip refused.[31] Philip instead abruptly cancelled the Irish enterprise altogether; the relenting weather, lateness of the season and disease amongst ships crews being the reasons.[10] The Adelantado instead was to sail to La Coruna, where he was to be given orders to seize the French Port of Brest which they had briefly held in 1594 only to be defeated by Anglo French troops who took the fort there.[33] Brest was chosen simply because it was closer to Spain but also could be used as a base to attack England and also to help the Irish rebels.[9]
Execution
The weather finally relented on the morning of 24 October permitting the Armada, numbering eighty-one ships, to depart the harbour of Lisbon.
By 1 November what remained of the fleet had returned and the cost was counted; the Adelantado informed the court of the disaster much to Philip's sadness.[34]
Meanwhile, reports of the Armada having sailed began to filter in England but also that a rumour from Ireland that one thousand five hundred Spanish had landed, with the whole island in revolt.[35] Charles Howard sent out a powerful fleet which included thirteen galleons, to find the dismembered remainders of the armada but found only floating wreckage and bodies.[36] A Spanish flyboat however was captured along with 200 of her crew and from this the knowledge and extent of the armada was then discovered.[32][34]
None of the Spanish ships ever made it to the English Channel and as a result Brest, Ireland and England had been spared a major assault.[7][9]
Aftermath
At first the damage appeared to be minimal and Philip hoped that once the Adelantado had reassembled the ships, he could continue his voyage but as time passed the enormity of the disaster became apparent.[1] Losses to the Armada at El Ferrol were significant; there was general confusion and sadness at the disaster.[10] In mid-November the nuncio sent a sorrowful summary of the facts: thirty vessels were missing, thirteen had crashed into the reefs and there were many dead from the Portuguese upper class.[9] Eighteen of the sunken ships were embargoed hulks, whose loss could easily be replaced but five of the King's principal ships known as the Apostles had perished, the worst loss being the 900-ton galleon Santiago, which had carried 330 soldiers as well as sailors, of whom only twenty-three survived.[1] Disease had ravaged the ships ever since they had been at port.[30] These could not be replaced so easily and there were few survivors in others.[18] In all nearly 5,000 men either perished to shipwrecks or were dead or sick to disease.[7][10]
As the magnitude of the disaster became more fully known, Philip reluctantly cancelled the enterprise on 13 November.[18] The disaster was ruinous in terms of finance as the ships La Capitana de Levante and Santiago, each transporting the paychests of 30,000 ducats, were lost.[17] The Armada was to winter in Spain and to depart the following spring, without further diversions or postponements.[12] A great fear then gripped Galicia in January 1597 that the English navy would possibly show up at any moment, a situation similar to that in 1589.[18] The Armada was rebuilt in El Ferrol with the help of replacement artillery and monies recovered from the shipwrecks.[30] The Spanish authorities were more concerned with defending the peninsula.[17]
The shock of the disaster reverberated into every corner of Philip's dominions, loosening everywhere the frayed bonds of his system and threatened to complete what Essex's successful Cadiz campaign had left undone.[28] After the defeat at Cadiz, bankruptcy had stared the King of Spain in the face and in the aftermath of the Armada, he was forced to suspend payment to creditors.[17] Philip had declared the third major bankruptcy of his reign.[2] The King desperately wanted only a postponement of the Armada not an abandonment and was obliged to borrow more money but this time from his Italian holdings.[37]
The Irish leaders in exile continued to believe that the Armada was bound for Ireland.[26] A year later another attempt would be made but this time after so many changes in strategy, it was on England, with the addition of destroying the English fleet returning from the failed Islands Voyage.[17] The Armada of 1597 in the autumn was executed and despite encountering a storm which scattered the fleet, some managed to reach and in some cases land troops in Cornwall and Wales.[38] With the majority of the fleet scattered and little cohesion between ships, the Adelantado ordered the fleet to retreat to Spain, losing a number of ships to the returning English fleet they had failed to destroy.[39]
See also
References
- Citations
- ^ a b c d Morgan pp. 56–58
- ^ a b Richardson & Doran p. 37
- ^ Childs p. 9
- ^ Tenace pp. 856–857
- ISBN 978-0786474707.
- ^ a b c d e Bicheno pp. 289–290
- ^ a b c d e f Leathes, Stanley (1907). The Cambridge Modern History, Volume 3. CUP Archive. p. 529.
- ^ Roberts, R A, ed. (1895). Calendar of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House, Volume 6, November 1596, 16–30. HMSO. pp. 479–499.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Tenace pp. 864–866
- ^ a b c d Hume p. 229
- ^ Ungerer p. 207
- ^ a b Wernham pp. 139–140
- ^ Simpson p. 37
- ^ McCoog p. 400
- ^ a b c Morgan pp. 45–50
- ^ a b Fernández Duro, Cesáreo: Armada española desde la unión de los reinos de Castilla y de Aragón. Vol. III. Instituto de Historia y Cultura Naval, p. 130 (Spanish)
- ^ a b c d e f Kamen pp. 308–309
- ^ .
- ^ Tenace pp. 857–860
- ^ Innes p 380
- ^ Kingsford, Charles Lethbridge (1925). Report on the Manuscripts of Lord de L'Isle & Dudley Volume 77. H. M. Stationery Office. p. xlvi.
- ^ Duerloo pp. 44–45
- ^ McCoog p. 276
- ^ Watson, Robert (1839). The history of the reign of Philip the Second, king of Spain. Lyon Public Library: Tegg. pp. 521–523.
- ^ a b c Wernham pp. 130–133
- ^ a b c d e f McCoog pp. 387–388
- ^ a b c d e f Tenace pp. 861–863
- ^ a b c d Corbett, Julian S. (1900). The Successors of Drake (1596–1603). Longmans. pp. 145–152.
- ^ Certificate given by Captain Alonso Cobos to the Irish Catholics, 15 May 1596 (Cal. S. P. Spain, 1587–1603, p. 169); O'Neill and O'Donnell to Philip II, 16 May 1596 (ibid, p. 620)
- ^ a b c d e Hammer pp. 306–308
- ^ a b c d e Morgan pp. 52–54
- ^ a b c d e Wernham pp. 136–138
- ^ MacCaffrey p. 193
- ^ a b Morgan pp. 54–56
- ^ Calendar of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House, Volume 6: 1596, 26–31 (Cecil Papers ed.). 1899. pp. 536–575.
- ^ Archivo General de Simancas Padilla to the Council of State, Lisbon, 22 October 1596
- ^ Watson (1839) p. 527
- ^ Graham pp. 213–214
- ^ Wernham p. 189
Bibliography
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- Childs, David (2009). Tudor Sea Power: The Foundation of Greatness. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1473819924.
- Hammer, Paul E. J. (2003). Elizabeth's Wars: War, Government and Society in Tudor England, 1544–1604. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1137173386.
- Hume, Martin (2004). Treason and Plot: Struggles for Catholic Supremacy in the Last Years of Queen Elizabeth. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-1417947133.
- Kamen, Henry (1997). Philip of Spain. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300078008.
- Mattingly, Garrett (2000). The Defeat of the Spanish Armada. Pimlico (3rd Ed). ISBN 978-0712666275.
- MacCaffrey, Wallace T (1994). Elizabeth I: War and Politics, 1588–1603. Princeton Paperbacks Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691036519.
- McCoog, Thomas M (2012). The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England, 1589–1597: Building the Faith of Saint Peter Upon the King of Spain's Monarchy. Ashgate & Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu. ISBN 978-1409437727.
- Morgan, Hiram (2004). The Battle of Kinsale. Wordwell Ltd. ISBN 1869857704.
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- Simpson, William (2001). The Reign of Elizabeth Heinemann advanced history. Heinemann. ISBN 978-0435327354.
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