Invincible Armada: short summary

Image: The Voice of Galicia

During the reign of Philip II, Spain was the largest empire in the world having territories all over the planet thanks to the policy of the king's ancestors. But in the last years of Felipe II, a series of events started the decline of the Empire, one of the best known being the defeat of the so-called Invincible Armada. To learn about such an important event for the history of Spain, today in this lesson from a PROFESSOR we are going to offer you a short summary of the Invincible Armada.

Index

1. Background to the Invincible Armada
2. The Spanish plan
3. The defeat of the Invincible Armada

In the middle of the 16th century the Spanish Empire spanned half the world, counting among the territories of her Philippines, Portugal, Netherlands and a large part of America. Only England dared to confront the Spanish state politically, and at the same time Philip IIhe also had interests in England, since his position on the globe made it a useful area to protect some of the possessions of the Spanish Empire.

These interests led Philip II to marry Mary I of England, the objective being that the successor of both will govern both Spain and England, making the Spanish Empire something difficult to combat. But this plan failed when Maria I died without descendants of Felipe II, occupying the throne the stepsister of María, the great Elizabeth I of England. Felipe II did not take long to ask Isabel to marry him, seeking to continue his plan to unite the two monarchies, but the English queen rejected him.

The first years of the reign of Isabel were peaceful, there was no type of confrontation between both crowns but all this changed due to the clashes at sea. Elizabeth I hired several pirates, including Sir Francis Drake, to attack overseas territories and Spanish ships, thereby seeking maritime supremacy.

In 1568 the Battle of San Juan de Ulúa, in which a small Spanish fleet defeated the English pirates thereby recovering the loot they had obtained through their attacks. In retaliation, Isabel I attacked several Spanish ships, which, together with her confrontation with the Catholics, she had Pope Pius V excommunicate her and give European monarchs permission to of her to dethrone her.

Isabel was not scared by it and continued to finance pirate attacks on Spanish shores in America, which made Felipe II decided to attack England.

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To continue with this short summary of the Invincible Armada, we must talk about the plan that Felipe II requested for the attack of the Spanish fleet over England.

Felipe II contacted two of his greatest strategists to plan the naval attack on England, they were Alejandro Farnesio from the Netherlands and Álvaro de Bazán from Portugal. The plan of the first was to carry out a blitzkrieg on London by the thirds, while the plan of the second was to send a large fleet to invade Great Britain. Felipe II decided that the best option was join both plans but, due to the delay in the construction of the Navy, the plan of the lightning attack was delayed.

In 1588, Álvaro de Bazán died and Felipe II gave the post of admiral to Alonso Perez de Guzman, of whom some said that he had never seen the sea. The new admiral had no experience whatsoever and was even prone to seasickness, but even he realized that the Navy was in bad shape and it was impossible to beat England with her.

Even with all this, the Invincible Armada went to sea in 1588, although the attack was delayed a month due to several problems when reaching the coast of A Coruña. However, Alejandro Farnesio's plan to carry out a surprise attack was unfeasible, since Isabel I knew about the attack thanks to her spies. De Guzmán asked Felipe II to stop the attack, but the king refused.

Image: Slideshare

The Navy began its journey to England by crossing the Bay of Biscay and entering the English Channel. The next night the Spanish fleet crossed paths with an English fleet directed by Howard, who sought a strategy of harassment on the Hispanic rub and tried to avoid close contact, since in a hand-to-hand combat the Spaniards had the upper hand.

Two days later, Howard attacked the Spanish again but his attack did not cause much damage to the Spanish fleet. Howard retired after an attack that seemed to have no effect, seeming the "invincible" Spanish fleet. The Hispanic ships decided to capture a port to be able to use it as a base, but Howard He divided his fleet into four to prevent it: three took care of stopping the Spanish and the fourth of attack her. The Spaniards withdrew, but they were not disturbed in their advance for several days.

The Spanish fleet stayed in Calais, where they awaited the arrival of the Duke of Parma's fleet. But before the arrival of the duke, the English were attacked, who lit eight flares and sent them against the Spanish fleet. These cut the anchor cables, which caused the wind to carry them to the North Sea. The next day, only a few ships were still anchored and tried to be rescued by some Spanish ships that regrouped, but they were annihilated in the Battle of Gravelinas.

The Invincible Armada had been defeated, the few surviving ships returned to Spain surrounding the British Isles. This ended one of the greatest defeats in the history of Spain.

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