THE SPANISH ARMADA, 1588
THE
SPANISH ARMADA, 1588
English involvement in
the Dutch War of Independence on the near continent brought the possibility of
war with Spain closer. Holland had been
a possession of the Spanish Hapsburgs (the Hapsburg family had split into two separate
houses, the Spanish, and the Austrian) but the independently minded Dutch had
different ideas. From 1585 onwards
Elizabeth maintained an expeditionary force in Holland as well as garrisons in
the towns of Flushing and Brill which were ceded to the English as safe ports
of entry for reinforcements, they also signified good faith between the two
countries. Ostend and Bergen were also
garrisoned by English troops. The
English supported Henry IV of France by sending expeditions in 1589 and
1596. But the biggest problem for
Elizabeth was Ireland where the traditional Gaelic rulers were rising out and,
after 1595, allied to the Spanish.
Elizabeth was hardly
bellicose and, quite sensibly, hated the idea of war. She neglected the efforts of Hawkins and
Drake who were harrying Spanish ports and the plate fleet with their ships. Elizabeth’s aim was to protect the English
Channel by keeping the navy in home ports.
At this time there was no standing army, so Elizabeth depended on
volunteers, the county militia, and the shire musters but only 104,000 men were
available out of a population of 3.5 million and only 42,000 were trained and
equipped. However, organisation had
improved, and English soldiers were generally better fed and equipped than
those in the armies of the military powers of the continent.
Corruption and peculation
became rife in the army and navy. The practice of returning more men on
strength than existed or “dead pay” was normal.
Thus, for every ninety men under his command a captain drew a hundred
men’s pay.
The English produced few
important commanders, especially since their forces were few and scattered
unlike continental commanders like Parma, Maurice of Nassau, and Henry IV of
France. They did excel at guerilla warfare,
however, which commanders like Sir Henry Sidney and Lord Mountjoy perfected in
the Irish bogs and forests. The great
naval commanders were beginning to decline and pass away, Grenville in 1591,
Frobisher in 1594, Drake and Hawkins in 1595.
Lesser successors like Howard of Effingham, Lord Thomas Howard, and Sir
Walter Raleigh only sporadically had the same level of success as their
predecessors.
The martyrdom of Mary
Queen of Scots, English interference in the Netherlands, and the Caribbean
antagonised the Spanish and Phillip II decided as early as 1585 that an
invasion of England was the best course of action. His plan was to send a fleet under the
command of his Admiral, Santa Cruz from Portugal via Spain, pick up a land army
from the Netherlands commanded by mercenary general Parma, and invade the south
of England. However, Phillip’s plans
began to go astray when Santa Cruz died in February 1588 and he appointed the
duke of Medina Sidonia who had no naval experience whatever, instead.
Despite this handicap,
the Spanish plan went ahead. The Spanish
fleet encountered the English in the channel, and a nine-days running battle
ensued. The two fleets were well
matched, each was composed of about 50 effective fighting ships and roughly 80
others. The Spanish galleons were larger
and less manoeuvrable, their guns heavier and short-ranged. They also carried aboard part of the army,
making the ships heavier. The Spanish
fleet sailed up the channel in its ‘crescent moon’ or line abreast formation
which did much to mitigate English tactics of line-ahead sailing. The English had more and better long-range
guns and better gunners. The English
navy was able to run rings around the lumbering, slow-moving Armada but was
unable to make any great impression on its militarily tight formation. Two engagements off Portland Bill and the
Isle of Wight resulted in the loss of two ships of the Armada, but the Spanish
fleet was largely intact when it arrived off Calais on the 27th of
July. The Spanish had overlooked the
necessity to find safe anchorage and Howard and Seymour launched six fire ships
on the night of the 28th of July.
Panicking, many of the Spanish ships cut their cables and drifted away
in the night. By morning only Medina
Sidonia and three or four ships were scattered away to the north-east. Then began the Battle of Gravelines in which
the Armada was virtually destroyed. Thousands
of men were lost to the withering fire of the English.
The weather began to
deteriorate and rain squalls bore down upon the Spanish ships. Medina Sidonia realised that he could not
return through the channel, so he decided to abandon the proposed union with
Parma’s forces and decided to beat a retreat around the north of the British
Isles. The English navy though depleted
of ammunition followed the Armada as far as the Firth of Forth. When the Armada began to go round the north
of Scotland the lumbering galleons were totally incapable of surviving the
Atlantic gales and scores of them were thrown upon the rocks and headlands or
sank in mid-ocean. Many of the Spanish
were driven ashore on the north and west coast of Ireland. Some were robbed and murdered, others taken
prisoner, but some too were helped by the native Irish, for instance, Captain
Francisco de Cuellar. Cuellar stayed
with the Irish for over a year and left a written account. Although the natives helped him, he was still
adamant that they were savages, “the wild Irish are barbarous and most filthy
in their diets.” Cuellar found the
customs, dress, and diet of the Irish to be crude and disgusting.
The Armada had been
dispersed but it had not been destroyed.
About forty of the galleons limped back to Spanish ports. Phillip forgave Medina Sidonia, but the
English had won a great victory and by December 1588 they had planned a counter
Armada to sail the following year and commanded by Admiral Drake and General
Norris. The expedition could not be
funded by the treasury which was broke but by private enterprise, a joint stock
company and the expedition was fatally delayed from February to April. The expedition was further delayed at Corunna
and by the time it reached Lisbon an expected rising by the Portuguese failed
to materialise and the fleet limped back to Plymouth. None of its objectives had been
realised. The remnants of the Spanish
Armada were being re-equipped, and Phillip was re-building his position. There were to be two further Armadas sent to
invade England, but both were defeated by the weather.
Even though the Spanish
had been defeated, Spain still poised a significant threat to English interests
especially since Ireland remained largely beyond its control. If the Spanish failed to invade England, they
might be able to use their gold and their armies to attack through
Ireland. English control of Ireland
centred on the Pale, an area around Dublin that extended as far north as
Dundalk. The west of Ireland, Connaught,
and the northern province called Ulster, remained Gaelic-speaking and “beyond
the pale”. Henry VIII became the first
English King of Ireland and had tried to pacify and encourage the Irish by
granting them earldoms. The earls of
Kildare and Desmond, the Butler earl of Ormonde, O’Brien earl of Thomond,
O’Neill earl of Tyrone. The Old English
persisted in the south and south-west of Ireland, Norman families who had
established fiefdoms in the Middle Ages.
They had adopted Irish dress, spoke Gaelic, and were Roman
Catholic. The New English who began to
appear in Ireland from 1540 onwards were beneficiaries of the Reformation in
Ireland.
Four consecutive
rebellions in Ireland, that of Shane O’Neill (1559-66), the Fitzmaurice
confederacy of Munster (1569-72), the Desmond rebellion (1579-83), and Tyrone’s
rebellion (1594-1603), threatened English interests in Ireland. These rebellions began to mount a serious
threat to English authority in Ireland when Hugh O’Neill earl of Tyrone
combined with Hugh Roe O’Donnell who ruled over Tyrconnel (modern day Donegal). Constant guerilla warfare in the wild Irish
bogs and forests began to wear the English forces down when in mid-1598 Sir
Henry Bagnal was sent to relieve the Blackwater fort which protected the Pale
from invasion from Ulster. Bagnal and
1,500 of his men were killed at the yellow ford across the Callen brook, a
tributary of the Blackwater. This was
the most significant defeat of English arms in the Irish wars. The government had virtually no other forces
in Ireland. Dublin was wide open, but
Tyrone failed to take his chance as he believed that nothing could be done
without Spanish support.
Elizabeth who had
previously dithered now began to act decisively by sending the earl of Essex to
Ireland in 1599 with the largest army yet seen there. The Battle of the Yellow Ford had serious
consequences, all Munster rose, Hugh Roe established himself in Connaught,
Raleigh’s plantation was washed away in blood.
(Sir Walter Raleigh owned a significant plantation of 40,000 acres in
Munster.) However, Essex deserted
Ireland to be with the Queen and Elizabeth replaced him with Charles Blount,
Lord Mountjoy. Mountjoy was an excellent
commander of guerilla forces who went onto defeat a combined army of Spanish
and Irish at Kinsale in 1601. A force of
4,000 Spanish under de Aguila occupied the port of Kinsale on the south coast
of Ireland. An English army under
Mountjoy besieged it and another army under Tyrone arrived to raise the
siege. Mountjoy attacked and defeated
both armies and the Tyrone rebellion came to an end.
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