As the page's title implies, the average reader will surely know what we are talking about if we mention this was the war of the Spanish Armada, that one time where Philip II of Spain gathered a giant fleet to invade the England of Elizabeth I, only to be wrecked by the brave Englishmen and a timely storm. This is basically the only thing in the entire war that transcended into popular culture, mainly due to a heavy dose of historical romanticization, decontextualization and, why not to say it, propaganda, a field in which Spain would be a perennial loser. Consequently, the reader might be surprised to find out that the Armada was not some sort of arc-ending final defeat for the Spanish Empire, but just a chapter more of a long war of attrition that featured multiple wins and losses in both sides, and whose immediate result actually leaned to the Spanish at the time.
The war was mainly naval, as it was effectively fought between an island country and a nation whose domains at the time spread literally all around the world. The English, who entered the conflict to assist the Dutch Republic during its struggle against Spanish rule, deployed reinforcements in Europe and engaged in fearless sea attacks of varied intensity, to which Spain responded by maxing up their defenses and playing to counter while attempting a series of unsuccessful large-scale invasions against English mainland (an Awesome, but Impractical strategy Philip II was oddly obsessed with, possibly because he had previously passed a bad time there and wanted to get his payback hard).note At the end, with both sides having thrown everything but the kitchen sink and outlived the very monarchs that started the war, they ultimately signed a peace treaty that turned the English into passive allies of the Spanish during the Dutch conflict.
The result of the war was complicated. On one hand, the English effort was flat-out overturned — they had entered the war to help the Dutch, yet they failed to achieve anything truly decisive and found themselves forced to accept an infamous peace that only made them a mild asset for the Spanish Empire against the Dutch. On the other hand, although much relieved by the outcome, Spain lost tons of resources and several precious chances to conquer England, which went to stunt their highest ambitions. Their own failure in England not only prevented a possible victory in the Netherlands, but also affected their posterior plans to assimilate France and took down an insane project to start the conquest of China. Aggrandized by revisionism or not, it is not said in vain that the defeat of Spanish Armada changed the course of History, even if at very long term.
Background
In the 1570s, Philip II from the House of Habsburg was the monarch of the Spanish Empire, whose tentacles extended to almost every corner of the globe and moved around enormous riches from the American mines, the Pacific trade routes and the Italian banking cities. As its natural, such a large empire was also engaged in constant conflict, the main of them being in the Netherlands, where the United Provinces fought against his authority due to a a long list of causes. The rebels were also Protestant elites, while the Spanish Empire was a Catholic state, which translated into an additional conflict of religious consciences. In a related point, Philip had been married to a Catholic Queen of England, Mary Tudor, but she had died in 1558 without giving an heir to help the Papal cause, leading to her half-sister, the Protestant Elizabeth, to reach the throne and reinstate Protestantism in England.With the reestablishment of Protestantism in England, English merchants in Spain were now vulnerable to be arrested by the Holy Office, better known as The Spanish Inquisition. Despite English protests, Philip II refused to grant them immunity, accusing them of smuggling and piracy, and so English pirates or privateers like Sir Francis Drake now had a justification to prey on the rich target that was Philip's empire. They attacked the Spanish treasure fleets and rich ports along the coast of the Indies, and also intruded successfully in the Atlantic slave trade, previously crammed by Portugal, with Drake's cousin Sir John Hawkins developing in 1562 a royally sponsored service. Although most of those attacks were ultimately more annoying than decisive, they vexed the Spanish greatly. In 1568, the Spanish navy saw the chance to strike a blow to Drake and Hawkins in San Juan de Ulúa, killing Drake's brother and giving him a reason for a personal vendetta against Spain.
In 1570, Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth and called for Europe to dispose of her and restore Catholicism in the British islands. Philip initially rejected the idea, believing legitimate monarchs shouldn't be ousted even for religious causes, but he eventually changed his mind. He was attracted to a plan to replace Elizabeth with the Catholic Queen of Scotland, Mary Stuart, but the English discovered the plot and retaliated by trying to foil all of Philip's own schemes. Elizabeth secretly supported their Protestant colleagues in the Netherlands, and sent the eager Drake into a 1577-1581 expedition around the world that hit ports of the Iberian Union that had seemed unreachable up to that point. Furthermore, when King Sebastian of Portugal died leaving Philip II as the heir to the throne of Portugal, English intervened to try to prevent the Spanish and Portuguese Empires from coalescing, which would make Philip even more powerful.
The English policies largely failed to do anything more than angering Philip, who pulled all stops. He turned the tide of the war in the Netherlands by installing Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma (not to mistake with that Farnese), who started submitting the rebels through his military brilliance. Meanwhile, his grand admiral álvaro de Bazán, Marquis of Santa Cruz defeated all attempts to prevent the assimilation of Portugal, successfully placing Philip in the two Iberian thrones and forming the modernly called Iberian Union. In 1584 Philip also secured supports in France by joining the Catholic League during the concurrent French Wars of Religion. Situation was critical: Elizabeth feared that, with the reestablishment of Hispanic control of the Netherlands and their new alliance with a Catholic France, England would be Alone with the Psycho, so she signed an open treaty of alliance with the Dutch rebels. Taking this as the final strike, Philip declared war on England in 1585.
The Spanish Armada...
Drake was sent in a pre-emptive strike to the Spanish Americas, where he captured shockingly the ports of Santo Domingo and Cartagena de Indias, forcing the Spaniards to pay a ransom. Meanwhile, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was sent to the Netherlands to help the rebellion, but this time it did little against Farnese. At this point, Elizabeth had the imprisoned Mary executed, which angered the Catholics and moved Pope Sixtus V to call for total action, especially given that her death meant Philip had inherited the claim to the British throne. Philip and álvaro de Bazán were eager for a plan to invade England, and after too many discussions by letter with Farnese, they decided to assemble a great fleet to escort him and his fearsome Tercios de Flandes to the isles.noteThis would be the second time in the 16th century that someone attempted to invade England, the first time being King Francis I of France during the Italian Wars, back when England was still an ally of Spain under Henry VIII. With 38,000 men in 300 ships, the French armada had been actually even bigger than the 29,000 men in 130-150 ships Philip was gathering in his ports, but its advance had been checked by the English in the Battle of Soylent. It wasn't that of a comparable situation, given that Iberian maritime resources and experience were far greater than those of both France or England, so Philip probably believed he would do better in any case. His plans were delayed, however, by several logistic troubles, a typhus epidemic, a destructive attack by Drake on their port of Cádiz in 1587, and above all, Bazán's fateful death in the epidemic. Bazán had asked to be replaced by his experienced brother Alonso, but the overconfident Philip instead replaced him by Alonso Pérez, Duke of Medina Sidonia, a great organizer and administrator but with almost zero naval experience and even less talent.note
In 1588, the Spanish Armada would finally sail away soon to meet a Trauma Conga Line, mix of sheer bad luck and the logical consequences of being commanded by a desk jockey with orders way over his head.note They were delayed again by a storm in La Coru?a, then met another storm in the Gulf of Biscay, then Medina Sidonia opted out of an attack on the British fleet in Plymouth that likely would have made the entire armada unnecessary, lost two important ships to a resultant British attack, and when he found out the Dutch were blockading his route and Farnese was late to the rendezvous due to miscommunication, he went blank. The fleet was thrown into chaos with fire ships by Drake and Hawkins, losing five other vessels in skirmishes due to their disorganization, so Medina Sidonia ultimately gave in and ordered to return home. Easier said than done, bad weather hit them again, forcing them to take the long way back around Scotland and Ireland and wrecking further the fleet. Dozens of vessels and many thousands of men never returned to Spain.note
Philip stoically facepalmed upon hearing the news, enough for him to call off an unrelated campaign against China at the other side of the world that would have been surely too much to chew at the time,note but he had the tact not to blame Medina Sidonia. In turn, luck favored him next, as a series of outbreaks of dysentery and typhus ravaged the British fleet (which put together actually matched the Armada in size) and gave them a bit of a kickback too.
...and the English Armada
Now it came the comeback. Elizabeth desired to exploit the timely Spanish weakness with a counterattack, so she ordered to assemble a comparable English Armada of 27,000 men in a resounding 170-200 lighter vessels during the lapse. The plan was equally ambitious, intending to sink the remnants of the enemy fleet, devastate the Peninsula, conquer the Azores and invade Portugal with the help of a local pretender to the throne, the Prior or Crato, hopefully breaking Portugal off Spain again. However, these designs were not more realistic than Philip's. Although Elizabeth did hand the mission to veritable men of sea Drake, Hawkins and John Norris, it couldn't be set aside that the English were far lesser resources in money, were not that experienced in amphibious warfare and generally lacked a powerful, well organized army, either lacking or neglecting necessary elements like cavalry and siege equipment. The Dutch also promised warships that never came, even if they did lend much needed funds for the expedition, which would essentially be a joint stock venture.The English Armada met its own bad beginning in 1589 when around 20 ships deserted even before reaching Spain, but Drake, undaunted, choose La Coru?a as their first target.note The British initially overcame the city's meager defenses, outnumbering the local militias by ten to one, but these eventually started turned the tide back, with even children and women joining the fight under the example of the famous María Pita. With arrival of reinforcements led by the multifaceted Jerónimo de Ayanz, the British were forced to withdraw. The armada then moved to Portugal, where the Prior of Crato awaited, but their travel to Lisbon was harassed by Iberian forces and diseases, and when they finally arrived, they found a city prepared for the battle under Alonso de Bazán and Matias de Albuquerque (a relative to Afonso de Albuquerque, conqueror of the Indian Ocean), who fought them off. note By this point Elizabeth was sending letters tearing Drake and Norris a new one for their failure, so they tried to attack the Azores and Galicia, but upon meeting failure for both, the utterly decimated British had to return home.
Back in England, Norris and other nobles immediately tried to spin the armada into a success by way of gigantic amounts of propaganda, even although more than half of the expeditioners were dead, barely any of the expedition's money had been made back, and a brief plague was brought back in the ships. Attempts to downplay it or downright erase it from the sources also started right there, which is probably the reason the English Armada remains pretty unknown nowadays.
Fleeting fortunes
The disaster of the English Armada gave back the naval advantage to the Iberian Union, which utilized convoy systems and improved intelligence networks to frustrate further attacks, bringing much needed silver from America and generally successfully protecting all that was not small merchant marine and remote settlements, the easiest targets for English attacks. Both sides exchanged aboundant privateering acts, pitting the Elizabethan Sea Dogs (the collective name for Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh and some other captains of British renown) against their imperial counterparts, the infamous Dunkirkers (ragtag but daring Flemish turned privateers either for money or loyalty) and the more discrete San Sebastián and Fuenterrabía corsairs (formed by the legendary Basque crews). England came slightly on top by the simple reason of not having nowhere near as much territory to defend nor as many riches to be plundered in the first place: the booty of a single treasure carrack captured in 1592 equalled half of England's royal annual revenue.Also in the 1590s, Philip II started assisting strongly the local Catholic League against the Protestant king Henry IV, harboring the hope to install his daughter Isabella in the throne and gain control of the entire country. Even although this ambition was soon discarded,note Philip refused to let France be overtaken by Protestantism and therefore kept the front open.note In this conflict, however, the renowned Farnese died of a battle wound after being overworked by Philip and the French head honchos, taking with him Spain's hope to end anything anytime soon. Ironically, Philip was going to appoint another general anyway because he believed Farnese wasn't fulfilling his absurd orders well enough. Involving himself with France essentially doomed his victory against both England and the Dutch rebels, but Philip believed it to be literally God's command.
In 1596, a Hispanic fleet under Juan del águila shockingly raided Cornwall, marking the first instance in a long time that the Spaniards had got their hands in the English country.note Afterwards, Drake and Hawkins made an attempt to retaliate against the Spanish with an expedition to their overseas properties, but this time the local defenses sent them pinballing from one to another, and eventually both of the legendary English admirals died of tropical dysentery in the sea without achieving very much. The Protestants managed to break the Spanish streak with a crushing victory in Cádiz under Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, after which Philip II declared bankruptcy, but in an almost bizarrely quick recovery, helped by his American riches and some "loans" from European bankers, Philip ordered the construction of a second, 120-ship Spanish Armada to assist Irish rebels against the English crown. Nothing came from this, though, as another storm (by this point almost a Running Gag) forced the fleet's commander Martín de Padilla to abort.
Next year, Queen Elizabeth send Devereaux and Raleigh in a massive expedition to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet, meeting an equally hard failure. Philip answered launching the third Spanish Armada under Juan del águila to invade England once for all, but although this time they managed to actually disembark and take positions, yet another storm forced them to retreat with some losses. Seemingly, large scale naval operations were simply not meant to work out for any side in this war.
Not helped by those depressing facts, Philip II finally accepted to respect Henry IV and break up with the French League, after which he fell ill and died in 1598, being succeeded by the infinitely less ambitious Philip III. The Iberian Union, overextended by its war with the Dutch, the British and the French (as well as the Ottomans in the Mediterranean), started losing the momentum it had caught, although it would turn out that its Herculean effort had also left its opponents weary and in need of peace. Negotiations were tried in 1601, close to a spirited but failed Spanish effort to assist the Irish rebels against the English crown. One year later, however, Elizabeth I died, being succeeded by the also more peaceful James I.
End of the war
New Spanish movements against England came by the hand of their Genoese captain Federico Spinola, brother to Ambrogio Spinola, causing a brief period known as the "Invisible Armada" where people wondered what would the Spaniards come up with. The result, however, was (guess what?) a new failure. Federico's plan involved deploying Mediterranean galleys in the Channel, but although he got some success with them, it all ended when he was killed in battle against Dutch vice-admiral Joos de Moor (one of the participants was The Duke of Osuna, which was later praised by saving what he could). The last operations of the war saw another up and coming captain, Antonio de Oquendo, repulsing some English privateering off Portugal, mere days after which, the war between England and the Hispanic Monarchy ended with the 1604 Treaty of London.The treaty's reception and strategic value was markedly different: the English were content that it protected their Protestant reform, but the resultant peace was unpopular and was seen as a capitulation and an abandonment of their continental colleagues; for the Spaniards, once the first pains of negotiating with heretics were dispelled, it was acknowledged as a huge advance, as the empire had effectively eliminated the threat of England from the Eighty Years War and now they could focus entirely on the Netherlands, with the addition that Iberian ships could now use English ports as naval bases (and vice versa if needed) to attack Dutch shipping. Even so, English privateers would come out from the war quite rich, which later allowed them to expand their colonization efforts, while the Spaniards, with a string of dead aspirations lying behind them due to the costs of the war, would not lack time to lament not to have gained control of the British Isles when they had the chance.
Peace would not last long, being finally broken again by a second Anglo-Spanish war in 1625.
