Battle of Vila Franca do Campo

The only portion of the Portuguese overseas empire to resist the Habsburg King Philip II of Spain (Philip I of Portugal) were the Azores Islands. The French crown sent a fleet under the command of the mercenary admiral Filippo Strozzi in order to help defend the islands. King Philip had offered an amnesty to the nine islands if they would surrender, but his messenger met with a very hostile reception at Angra, and retired to the island of São Miguel, which had presented its allegiance to the King of Spain and Portugal. While a fleet was prepared at Lisbon to subdue the nine islands, a Spanish commander sent out to escort the incoming treasure fleet, Pedro Valdés, was ordered to deliver a new offer of pardon, but on no account to begin hostilities until the necessary force was assembled. However, receiving the same replies the former envoy, Valdés was persuaded to attempt an assault on Terceira. At what became known as the Battle of Salga, his landing-force of 600 men met with a savage welcome; the half-wild bulls of the island were driven into them and they were cut to pieces as they fled to the ships. Meanwhile, António reached Calais and proceeded to England. Walsingham and Burghley favoured the sending of an expedition to the Azores: the Count of Vimioso even made an agreement with Drake and Hawkins, but Elizabeth was unwilling to make war on Philip, and António returned to France. ==Battle==

.'' By Jan Huygen van Linschoten In June 1582 António's French fleet left Belle-Isle, intending to subdue the two islands of São Miguel and Santa Maria and to capture the treasure fleet which would probably put in at the Azores. However, on learning that Strozzi had sailed, Álvaro de Bazán, Marquess of Santa Cruz also made for the Azores with fewer ships but larger in size and arms than Strozzi and about an equal number of men. He arrived too late to prevent the French from landing on São Miguel, but in time to save the capital, Ponta Delgada. After an indecisive gunfight on 24 July 1582 the fleets met two days later in a fierce close battle south of the island of São Miguel. The French initially had the advantage of the wind and attacked the Spanish rear with superior forces but that gave Bazán, the Spanish commander the opportunity to gain the wind for the Spanish vanguard which in its turn attacked the French. The Spanish were outnumbered two to one, the brunt of the French attack was borne by the Portuguese-built Spanish galleon San Mateo (São Mateus), a vessel of 750 tonnes armed with 30 guns. Although surrounded, battered by artillery, and boarded by several French ships, her sailors held their ground and repulsed all attacks. His innovation to the Spanish galleys allowed him the privilege of being the first to be seen on open water with this type of ship, something never accomplished before. Álvaro de Bazán in his Portuguese-built flagship São Martinho sought out Strozzi's ship amid the smoke and chaos and, having found her, pounded her with gunfire until she was close to sinking. At the battle's close, the Pretender's fleet had lost 10 ships sunk or captured, and well over 1,000 men, including Strozzi, wounded to death by order of Bazán, and then, still breathing, thrown into the sea. Álvaro de Bazán defeated the French through a combination of gunfire and boarding. Some thought that Strozzi had been unlucky to lose. His ships had proved nimbler than those of Álvaro de Bazán, and, like Hawkins at San Juan de Ulúa, they had used their artillery well, operating in mutually supporting groups of four to charge, and assail each of them one of the great vessels of the enemy. The Spanish fleet suffered severe damage, Philip II's commemorative mural in the Escorial's Hall of Battles correctly depicts extensive shot damage on the Spanish side. The galleon San Martín (São Martinho) barely managed to tow the captured enemy flagship back to port. On 26 July, after a five-hour naval engagement, the French and English fleets, weaker in battle-power, were routed; seventeen of their ships deserted. Men over seventeen who were captured were put to death as pirates. This sentence seemed very cruel to all, so some of the Spanish soldiers and captains came forward to plead to Álvaro de Bazán for mercy, and suggested that he make an exemption for the French prisoners by sparing their lives as prisoners of war. Álvaro de Bazan responded by saying that he was only executing the "mandates" of the King of France, that being at peace with Castile would not allow his subjects to act as armed pirates attacking the Spaniards. ==Aftermath==

s landing on Terceira.'' El Escorial Hall of Battles Though larger, the improvised French fleet had not been sufficient to challenge the Spanish in the Atlantic triangle. However, the battle shows that Strozzi tried, partly, an approximation to this tactic, by an attack by a group of naus engaged in formation. The other problem for the French-allied fleet to win more easily with such tactical or approximate strategy, despite its numbers and the fact that several carracks in its fleet had more guns aboard than the galleon São Mateus, although the latter being robust and designed for greater maneuverability, was that of the Atlantic armed carracks, but especially, the Portuguese oceanic fighting galleons, were precisely incorporated into the Spanish fleet, and leading the fight (despite being only two, they would be decisive, being the other ships Portuguese and Castilian carracks, urcas and pataches). These galleons were also strongly armed—with its personnel and specialized bombardeiros or artilheiros—more suitable for such a strategy in the Atlantic high seas than other naus and galleons of more mixed-use, or the galleys (the widest Spanish resource for naval engagements until then). However, in the end, the battle was eventually largely resolved in the old way of naval warfare. Álvaro de Bazán had won a great victory and jubilation at his triumphant return seems to have gripped the whole of Spain. The French ambassador at Philip II's court sourly reported that some Spaniards went so far as to claim that "even Christ was no longer safe in Paradise, for the marquis might go there to bring him back and crucify him all over again". Later some of this pride and passion turned against the vanquished: according to the same ambassador by October 1582 the Spaniards had taken to "spitting in the faces of any Frenchmen they happened to meet in the street." The Terceirans expected the Spaniards to land at the harbours of Angra and Peggia, and had disposed their forces accordingly. However, Santa Cruz decided to deliver his main thrust at Mole, a beach 10 miles from Angra defended only by light earthworks occupied by infantry with some artillery support. ==References==