Fleet descriptions Prior to the undertaking, Pope Sixtus V allowed Philip to collect crusade taxes and granted his men
indulgences. The blessing of the armada's banner on 25 April 1588, was similar to the ceremony used prior to the
Battle of Lepanto in 1571. On 21 July 1588 (N.S), the armada set sail from Lisbon and headed for the English Channel. When it left Lisbon, the fleet was composed of 141 ships, with 10,138 sailors and 19,315 soldiers. There were also 1,545 non-combatants (volunteers, officers' servants, friars, artillerists etc.) The fleet carried 1,500 brass guns and 1,000 iron guns. The full body of the fleet took two days to leave port. The armada was delayed by bad weather. Storms in the
Bay of Biscay along the
Galician coast forced four galleys commanded by Captain
Diego de Medrano and one galleon to turn back, and other ships had to put in to
A Coruña for repairs, leaving 137 ships that sailed for the English Channel. Nearly half of the ships were not built as warships and were used for duties such as scouting and dispatch work, or for carrying supplies, animals and troops. The armada included 24 purpose-built warships, 44 armed merchantmen, 38 auxiliary vessels and 34 supply ships. In the Spanish Netherlands, Parma had mustered a polyglot army of 60,583 soldiers; Spanish, Italians, Burgundians, Irish, Scottish, Walloon and German, with 3650 cavalry. He ordered hundreds of flyboats to be built to carry them across the channel while awaiting the arrival of the armada. Since the element of surprise was long gone, the new plan was to use the cover of the warships to convey the army on barges to a place near London. In all, 55,000 men were to have been mustered, a huge army for that time. On the day the armada set sail, Elizabeth's ambassador in the Netherlands,
Valentine Dale, met Parma's representatives in peace negotiations. The English made a vain effort to intercept the armada in the
Bay of Biscay. On 6 July, negotiations were abandoned, and the English fleet stood prepared, if ill-supplied, at Plymouth, awaiting news of Spanish movements. Only 122 ships from the Spanish fleet entered the Channel; the four
galleys, one
nao, five
pataches and the 10 Portuguese
caravels had left the fleet before the first encounter with the English fleet. An additional 5 pataches, dispatched to deliver messages to Parma, should be deducted which brings the number to 117 Spanish ships facing the roughly 226-strong English fleet. The Spanish fleet outgunned that of the English with 50% more available firepower than the English. The English fleet consisted of the 34 ships of the Royal Fleet, 21 of which were galleons of 200 to 400 tons, and 163 other ships, 30 of which were of 200 to 400 tons and carried up to 42 guns each. Twelve of the ships were privateers owned by
Lord Howard of Effingham,
John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake. In the beginning of June, Parma had sent Captain Moresin with some pilots to Admiral Sedonia. Upon Moresin's return on 22 June, the report he made to Parma caused him distress. Medina Sedonia was under the impression that Parma could simply sail out into the channel with his barges filled with troops. Parma had continually informed the king that his passage to the channel was blocked by English and Dutch ships, and the only way he could bring his boats out was if the armada cleared the blockade. The fleet was sighted in England on 29 July (N.S), when it appeared off
the Lizard in
Cornwall. The news was conveyed to London by a system of
beacons that had been constructed along the south coast. The same day the English fleet was trapped in Plymouth Harbour by the incoming tide. The Spanish convened a
council of war, where it was proposed to ride into the harbour on the tide and incapacitate the defending ships at anchor. From Plymouth Harbour the Spanish would attack England, but Philip explicitly forbade Medina Sidonia from engaging, leaving the armada to sail on to the east and towards the Isle of Wight. As the tide turned, 55 English ships set out to confront the armada from Plymouth under the command of Lord Howard of Effingham, with Sir Francis Drake as vice admiral. The
rear admiral was John Hawkins.
Action off Plymouth On 30 July, the English fleet was off
Eddystone Rocks with the armada upwind to the west. To execute its attack, the English
tacked upwind of the armada, thus gaining the
weather gage, a significant advantage. At daybreak on 31 July, the English fleet engaged the armada off Plymouth near the Eddystone Rocks. The armada was in a crescent-shaped defensive formation, convex towards the east. The galleons and great ships were concentrated in the centre and at the tips of the crescent's horns, giving cover to the transports and supply ships in between. Opposing them, the English were in two sections, with Drake to the north in with 11 ships, and Howard to the south in with the bulk of the fleet. Given the Spanish advantage in close-quarter fighting, the English kept beyond grappling range and bombarded the Spanish ships from a distance with cannon fire. The distance was too great for the manoeuvre to be effective and, at the end of the first day's fighting neither fleet had lost a ship in action. The English caught up with the Spanish fleet after a day of sailing. File:The Spanish fleet off the coast of Cornwall on 29 July 1588 RMG D3291.tiff|The Spanish fleet off the coast of Cornwall on 29 July 1588 (N.S.) File:The Spanish and English fleets near Plymouth on 30 - 31 July 1588 RMG F8040.tiff|The Spanish and English fleets near Plymouth on 30–31 July 1588 (N.S.) File:The English engage the Spanish fleet near Plymouth on 31 July 1588 RMG D3293.tiff|The English engage the Spanish fleet near Plymouth on 31 July 1588 (N.S) File:The English pursue the Spanish fleet east of Plymouth on 31 July - 1 August 1588 RMG D3294.tiff|The English pursue the Spanish fleet east of Plymouth on 31 July – 1 August 1588 (N.S.)
Actions off Portland Bill and Isle of Wight The English fleet and the armada engaged once more on 1 August, off
Portland. A change of wind gave the Spanish the
weather gage, and they sought to close with the English, but were foiled by the smaller ships' greater manoeuvrability. While the Spanish centre manoeuvred to support the , the collided with a number of ships, losing her
bowsprit and setting in motion a series of mishaps. She began to drift, and was taken off by the current in the opposite direction to the fleet and closer to the English. Drake in the
Revenge sailed to the during the night and she was taken in action; Admiral (commander of the Squadron of Andalusia) surrendered along with his entire crew. On board, the English seized supplies of much-needed
gunpowder and 50,000 gold
ducats. Drake had been guiding the English fleet by means of a lantern, which he snuffed out to slip away from the Spanish ships, causing the rest of his fleet to become scattered and disarrayed by dawn. At one point, Howard formed his ships into a
line of battle to attack at close range, bringing all his guns to bear, but he did not follow through with the manoeuvre and little was achieved. During a lull in battle, 's gunpowder
magazine exploded, perhaps as a result of sabotage by a disgruntled gunner, setting a portion of the ship on fire. The Spanish attempted to
scuttle the ship, but this failed when the
Golden Hind came up. The Spanish evacuated the vessel and the
Golden Hind promptly captured her. If the armada could create a temporary base in the protected waters of the Solent, the strait separating the Isle of Wight from the English mainland, it could wait there for word from Parma's army; Parma did not get news of this until 6 August. However, in a full-scale attack, the English fleet broke into four groups with
Martin Frobisher of the ship given command over a squadron, and Drake coming with a large force from the south. Medina Sidonia sent reinforcements south and ordered the Armada back to open sea to avoid the
Owers shoals. There were no other secure harbours further east along England's south coast, so the Armada was compelled to make for
Calais, without being able to wait for word of Parma's army. Starting on 1 August, Sidonia began sending Parma messages detailing his position and movements. However, couriers landed on the French shore or despatched in small vessels could make their way to Parma little faster than the armada itself. It was not until 5 August that Parma received the first report from the Admiral. File:The English and Spanish fleets on 1 - 2 August 1588 RMG F8043.tiff|The English and Spanish fleets on 1–2 August 1588 (N.S.) File:The English and Spanish fleets between Portland Bill and the Isle of Wight on 2 - 3 August 1588 RMG D3296.tiff|The English and Spanish fleets between Portland Bill and the Isle of Wight on 2–3 August 1588 (N.S.) File:The battle off the Isle of Wight on 4 August 1588 RMG F8045.tiff|The battle off the Isle of Wight on 4 August 1588 (N.S.)
Fireships at Calais On 7 August, the armada anchored off Calais in a tightly packed defensive crescent formation, not far from
Dunkirk (Parma only learned of this on that same afternoon) where Parma's army, reduced by disease to 16,000, was expected to be waiting, ready to join the fleet in barges sent from ports along the Flemish coast. An essential element of the plan of invasion, as it was eventually implemented, was the transportation of a large part of Parma's
Army of Flanders as the main invasion force in unarmed barges across the English Channel. These barges would be protected by the large ships of the armada. However, to get to the armada, they would have to cross the zone dominated by the Dutch navy, where the armada could not go due to the ongoing
Eighty Years' War with the Dutch Republic. This problem seems to have been overlooked by the armada's commanders, but it was insurmountable. Communication was more difficult than anticipated, and word came too late that Parma's army had yet to be equipped with sufficient transport or to be assembled in the port, a process that would take at least six days. As Medina Sidonia waited at anchor, Dunkirk was
blockaded by a Dutch fleet of 30 flyboats under Lieutenant-Admiral
Justinus van Nassau. The Dutch flyboats mainly operated in the shallow waters off
Zeeland and
Flanders where larger warships with a deeper draught, like the Spanish and English galleons, could not safely enter. Parma expected the armada to send its light
pataches to drive away the Dutch, but Medina Sidonia would not send them because he feared he would need these ships for his own protection. There was no deep-water port where the fleet might shelter, which had been acknowledged as a major difficulty for the expedition, and the Spanish found themselves vulnerable as night drew on. The Dutch enjoyed an unchallenged naval advantage in these waters, even though their navy was inferior in naval armament. Because Medina Sidonia did not attempt to break the Dutch blockade and Parma would not risk attempting the passage unescorted, the Army of Flanders escaped the trap that Van Nassau had in mind for them. Late on 7 August, Howard was reinforced by a squadron under Lord Edward Seymour and
William Wynter, which had been stationed in
the Downs as a reinforcement for the Dutch should Parma make any independent move. Their arrival gave Howard a total of 140 ships. He also received a small amount of powder and shot, which the Earl of Sussex had collected from fortresses and garrisons on the South Coast, and some victuals. The wind and currents were favourable for an attempt to break the armada's formation by sending fireships against it. Walsingham had already sent orders to Dover that fishing smacks and faggots and
pitch were to be collected for this purpose. However, the English commanders felt that they could not wait for proper fireships and therefore sacrificed eight of their own warships. Drake, who was a substantial shipowner, offered one of his own ships, the 200-ton "Thomas". Hawkins also offered one of his ships, the 150-ton "Bark Bond". Six other ships, of between 90 and 200 tons, were volunteered. These ships were filled with whatever pitch,
brimstone and
tar was immediately available. Because of the haste, the loaded guns and stores were left aboard. In the middle of the night of 7–8 August, the English set these fireships alight and cast them downwind among the closely anchored vessels of the armada. The Spanish feared that these uncommonly large fireships were "
hellburners", specialised fireships filled with large gunpowder charges that had been used to deadly effect at the
Siege of Antwerp. Three were intercepted by pataches and towed away, but the remainder bore down on the fleet. Medina Sidonia's
flagship and the principal warships held their positions, but the rest of the fleet cut their anchor cables and scattered in confusion. No Spanish ships were burnt, but the crescent formation had been broken, and the fleet found itself too far
leeward of Calais in the rising southwesterly wind to recover its position. Another loss, the effect of which would not be felt until later, was almost every anchor the Armada's ships possessed. The English closed in for battle. Parma learned of this the following day. File:The pursuit to Calais, 4 - 6 August 1588 RMG D3298.tiff|The pursuit to Calais, 4–6 August 1588 (N.S.) File:The fireship attack on the Spanish Armada, 7 August 1588 RMG D3299.tiff|The fireship attack on the Spanish Armada, 7 August 1588 (N.S.) File:Spanish Armada fireships.jpg|English fireships launched at the Spanish Armada off Calais (N.S.) File:The battle off Gravelines, 8 August 1588 RMG F8048.tiff|The battle off Gravelines, 8 August 1588 (N.S.)
Battle of Gravelines '', painted by
Philip James de Loutherbourg (1796) The small port of
Gravelines was part of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands close to the border with France, and was the closest Spanish territory to England. Before dawn on 8 August, Medina Sidonia struggled to regather his fleet after the fireships scattered it, and was reluctant to sail further east than Gravelines, knowing the danger of running aground on the shoals off Flanders, from which his Dutch enemies had removed the
sea marks. The English learned of the armada's weaknesses during the skirmishes in the English Channel, and concluded it was possible to close in to within to be able to penetrate the oak hulls of the Spanish warships. They had spent most of their gunpowder in the first engagements and had, after the Isle of Wight, been forced to conserve their heavy shot and powder for an anticipated attack near Gravelines. During all the engagements, the Spanish heavy guns could not easily be reloaded because of their close spacing and the quantities of supplies stowed between decks, as Drake had discovered on capturing the in the Channel. Instead, the Spanish gunners fired once and then transferred to their main task, which was to
board enemy ships, as had been the practice in naval warfare at the time. Evidence from Armada wrecks in Ireland shows that much of the fleet's ammunition was unused. Their determination to fight by boarding, rather than employing cannon fire at a distance, proved a disadvantage for the Spanish. The manoeuvre had been effective in the battles of
Lepanto and
Ponta Delgada earlier in the decade, but the English were aware of it and sought to avoid it by keeping their distance. While Medina Sidonia was gathering the armada ships together into their traditional crescent formation the English fleet moved in, and at dawn the flagship with four other ships found themselves facing the entire English fleet. The English provoked Spanish fire while staying out of range. The English then closed, firing damaging broadsides into the enemy ships, all the while maintaining a windward position, so the
heeling armada hulls were exposed to damage below the water line when they changed course later. Many of the Spanish gunners were killed or wounded by the English broadsides, and the task of manning the cannon often fell to foot soldiers who did not know how to operate them. The ships were close enough for sailors on the upper decks of the English and Spanish ships to exchange musket fire. A couple of hours into the battle, a few more armada warships closed in to form wings on either side of the five ships already under attack. After eight hours, the English ships began to run out of ammunition, and some gunners began loading objects such as chains into their cannons. Around 4 pm, the English fired their last shots and pulled back. Five Spanish and Portuguese ships were lost: the 605 ton , a
carrack which had been part of Don Diego Flores de Valdes' Castile Squadron which had attempted to surrender to Captain
Robert Crosse of the
Hope, sank off
Blankenberge with the loss of 275 men the Spanish only managing to rescue a single boatload of survivors. The
galleass , the flagship of Don
Hugo de Moncada which had been holed below the waterline, was forced to run aground at Calais to avoid sinking. On sight of this, Admiral Howard ordered a flotilla of ship's boats to carry her by boarding. Moncada was killed during an exchange of small arms fire, a shot to his head from an arquebus. The ship was then taken after murderous fighting between the crew, galley slaves and the English. The French meanwhile could do little except to watch as the ship was plundered, but they opened fire to ward off the English who quickly left to join the rest of the fight. The next day, the severely crippled galleon ran aground in between Sluis and Ostend; it was taken by a combination of Dutch ships and English troops led by
Francis Vere. The captain, Don Diego Pimmental, surrendered along with the survivors of his crew. Later that day, the equally crippled , commanded by Maestre de Campo Don Fransico de Toledo, drifted away as she was sinking and ran aground on the island of
Walcheren. The English troops sortied from
Flushing to the wreck, attacked the stricken vessel, and took the crew prisoners. A Dutch force of flyboats led by
Justinus van Nassau then took possession of the ship. A pinnace was also run aground by her crew to prevent her from sinking. Many other Spanish ships were severely damaged, especially the Portuguese and some Spanish Atlantic-class galleons, including some Neapolitan galleys, which bore the brunt of the fighting during the early hours of the battle: the Spanish , , and ; the Neapolitan ; and the Portuguese and . The Spanish plan to join with Parma's army had been frustrated.
Elizabeth's Tilbury speech Because of the potential invasion from the Netherlands,
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester assembled a force of 4,500 militia at
West Tilbury, Essex, to defend the
Thames Estuary against any incursion up-river towards London. The result of the English fireship attack and the sea battle of Gravelines had not yet reached England, so Elizabeth went to Tilbury on 18 August to review her forces, arriving on horseback in ceremonial armour to imply to the militia that she was prepared to lead them in the ensuing battle. She gave them her royal address, which survives in at least six slightly different versions. One version is as follows: , the
Armada Portrait at
Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire . A stylised depiction of key elements of the armada story: the alarm beacons, Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury, and the sea battle at Gravelines.
Armada in Scotland and Ireland On the day after the battle at Gravelines, the disorganised and unmanoeuvrable Spanish fleet was at risk of running onto the sands of Zeeland because of the prevailing wind. The wind then changed to the south, enabling the fleet to sail north. The English ships under Howard pursued to prevent any landing on English soil, although by this time his ships were almost out of shot. On 12 August, Howard called a halt to the pursuit at about the latitude of the
Firth of Forth off Scotland. The only option left to the Spanish ships was to return to Spain by sailing round the north of Scotland and home via the Atlantic or the
Irish Sea. As the Spanish fleet rounded Scotland on 20 August, it consisted of 110 vessels and most made it around. The , heavily damaged during the Gravelines engagement, had struggled North and limped into
Tobermory bay on the
Isle of Mull on 23 September, but was later destroyed by an English agent sent by Francis Walsingham with most of the crew on board. The Spanish ships were beginning to show wear from the long voyage, and some were kept together by strengthening their damaged hulls with cables. Supplies of food and water ran short. The intention would have been to keep to the west of the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, seeking the relative safety of the open sea. There being no way of accurately measuring
longitude, the Spanish were not aware that the
Gulf Stream was carrying them north and east as they tried to move west, and they eventually turned south much closer to the coast than they thought. Off Scotland and Ireland, the fleet ran into a series of powerful westerly winds which drove many of the damaged ships further towards the
lee shore. Because so many anchors had been abandoned during the escape from the English fireships off Calais, many of the ships were incapable of securing shelter as the fleet reached the coast of Ireland and were driven onto the rocks; local inhabitants looted the ships. The late sixteenth century and especially 1588 was marked by unusually strong North Atlantic storms, perhaps associated with a high accumulation of polar ice off the coast of
Greenland, a feature of the "
Little Ice Age". More ships and sailors were lost to cold and stormy weather than in direct combat. Most of the 28 ships lost in the storms were along the jagged steep rocks of the western coast of Ireland. About 5,000 men died by drowning, starvation and slaughter by local inhabitants after their ships were driven ashore on the west coasts of Scotland and Ireland. The English Lord Deputy
William FitzWilliam ordered the English soldiers in Ireland to kill any Spanish prisoners, which was done on several occasions instead of asking for ransom as was common during that period. Reports of the passage of the remnants of the Spanish Armada around Ireland abound with onerous accounts of hardships and survival. One of the costliest wrecks was that of the
galleass , which was driven on to
Lacada Point in
County Antrim on the night of 26 October. Of the estimated 1,300 people on board, there were nine survivors. 260 bodies washed ashore, including , knight and member of the Council of Thirteen () of the
Order of Santiago. Captain
Francisco de Cuéllar was wrecked on the coast of Ireland and gave a remarkable account of his experiences in the fleet,
on the run in Ireland, defeat of an English army
besieging Rosclogher castle, flight through Scotland, surviving a second shipwreck and
ultimate return to Spain.
Return to Spain Continental Europe had been anxiously awaiting news of the armada all summer. The Spanish postmaster and Spanish agents in Rome promoted reports of Spanish victory in hopes of convincing
Pope Sixtus V to release his promise of one million
ducats upon landing of troops. In France, the Spanish and English ambassadors promoted contradictory narratives in the press, and a Spanish victory was incorrectly celebrated in Paris, Prague, and Venice. It was not until late August that reliable reports of the Spanish defeat arrived in major cities and were widely believed. The first rumours of a setback for the armada began to reach Spain when news of the English fireships breaking the Spanish formation at Calais was received, but this was disbelieved. The King noted "I hope God has not permitted so much evil". Nothing was heard for nearly two weeks and it was not until 21 September that the first of the ships of the armada began to arrive into Spain – the first of eight entered into Coruña which included Medina Sidonia's . Over the next few days Diego Flores took 22 more into
Laredo harbour and Miguel de Oquendo brought five more into the port of
Guipuzcoa. After Medina Sidonia entered Coruña, and following the death of Admiral Miguel de Oquendo, Captain
Diego de Medrano was appointed interim Admiral to command the remaining armada back to Spain. By mid-October it was becoming more apparent for the Spanish that few if any more of the remaining missing ships of the armada would return. Even in November three months after the battles through the Channel, a few Spanish ships were still attempting the journey home. One of the last, the Spanish hospital ship , carrying some 200 sick and wounded survivors, came into
Hope Cove in
Devon on 7 November, the commander trying to find a suitable place to ground her. The crew were taken prisoner and the sick were treated in
Bodmin and
Plympton. ==Aftermath==