A Plan That Depended on Two Armies
The Armada of 1588 is often remembered as a naval contest in which a mighty Spanish fleet was routed by small, nimble English ships and a lucky storm. The truth is more complicated. King Philip II of Spain wanted to remove England as a threat to his interests, which included its support for Protestant rebels in the Netherlands and the raids of English seamen on Spanish shipping. The fleet was not intended to win a sea battle for its own sake. Its job was to reach the Channel, link up with an army commanded by the Duke of Parma in the Spanish Netherlands, and escort that army across the narrow sea in barges.
That requirement was the plan’s central weakness. The big ships of the fleet could not enter the shallow Flemish ports where Parma’s troops were waiting, and Parma’s barges could not safely put to sea with English warships nearby. The two halves of the plan had no reliable way of communicating or meeting.
The Fleet
The Armada sailed from Lisbon in May 1588 under the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a nobleman with little naval experience who took the post after the previous commander died. Bad weather and supply problems forced it to put in at Corunna before it finally set out in July. Estimates of its size are usually around 130 ships, carrying many thousands of soldiers as well as sailors. The fleet included large galleons, armed merchantmen, supply ships and a small number of galleasses, which were big oared ships. The galleon was the main warship type, of the same family used as treasure fleet galleons on the Atlantic route.
The English fleet was commanded by Lord Howard of Effingham, with experienced captains such as Francis Drake and John Hawkins, and relied on ships built to be handled well under sail and armed with guns that could be fired quickly. The fight was less a contest of large against small than a clash of different approaches. The Spanish approach emphasised boarding, close action and troop carriage. The English approach emphasised long-range gunfire, though by most accounts it did less damage than hoped.
Through the Channel
The two fleets first sighted each other off the coast of southwest England in late July. Over the next days the Armada moved eastward up the Channel in a defensive crescent formation, with the English following and firing from a distance. There were several running engagements, but few Spanish ships were sunk, and the formation held.
The Armada reached the roads off Calais in early August, hoping to link up with Parma. During the night of 7 to 8 August the English sent fireships, old vessels set alight and drifted toward the anchored fleet. No Spanish ship was destroyed by fire directly, but the fleet panicked, cut its cables and scattered. The next day, off Gravelines, the English attacked a disordered enemy and inflicted serious damage. The wind then pushed the Spanish toward the shoals of the Flemish coast.
The Voyage Home
With the invasion plan impossible and the wind unfavourable, Medina Sidonia decided to return to Spain by sailing north around Scotland and then west of Ireland. It was a long, harsh route for ships already damaged and short of water and food. Autumn gales struck the fleet, and a considerable number of ships were wrecked on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. Estimates differ, but a substantial fraction of the fleet failed to return, and many thousands of men died of drowning, disease and hunger.
Weather played a large part in the campaign, as it did throughout the age of sail. Historians nevertheless caution against giving it all the credit, because the Armada’s plan had already collapsed before the worst storms. Part of the confusion in dates comes from the fact that England still used the Julian calendar while Spain used the Gregorian, which differed by ten days.
What Followed
The defeat did not end the war, which lasted until 1604. Spain built new ships and sent further expeditions in 1596 and 1597, which were also scattered by storms. English raids on the Spanish coast and Atlantic routes brought mixed results, and the Spanish treasure convoys continued to cross the Atlantic. The Armada’s failure did not break Spanish naval power, and the idea that it did is a later simplification.
It did, however, matter to England’s sense of itself, and it influenced later thinking about naval defence and the importance of gunnery. Armed merchant vessels and private ships took part in the wider war, a practice licensed through letters of marque. The campaign also helped push naval design toward ships that could fight by gunfire at range, a trend that culminated in the ship of the line.