Anglo-Spanish Wars

Famous Participants: The First War: Sir Francis Drake: Greatest sea adventurer. Sailed around the world, harassed Spanish ships. Fought in Armada. Medina Sidonia: Spanish Admiral in charge of the Spanish Armada. Charles Howard: British Admiral who led the naval forces during the Spanish Armada. Earl of Essex: Favorite of Queen Elizabeth. Involved in a conspiracy and died in prison. Sir Walter Raleigh: Courtier of Queen Elizabeth. Explorer, mastermind of the Roanoke Colony in North Carolina. Richard Grenville: Naval hero of the era of Queen Elizabeth. Explored and helped settle the new

world

The First War The Anglo-Spanish Wars: The first Anglo Spanish war is most famous for the Spanish Armada, a failed attempt on the part of Spain to invade England. There were several other battles both before and after the Armada, most notably, Sir Francis Drake's famous raid of Cadiz, and Sir Grenville's last stand on the Revenge, and the successful raid on Cadiz in 1596. The Spanish also attempted a few other unsuccessful raids against England, and provided some support to the rebels in Ireland who provoked the Nine Years War in 1595. After the death of Philip II however, a peace was made in

1604

Battle of Jamaica The Anglo-Spanish Wars: After Cromwell became Lord Protector in 1653 he began to formulate the so-called 'Western Design', a plan to attack and acquire Spanish territories in and around the Caribbean and to plant them with English settlers. In 1654 General Robert Venables and Admiral William Penn were given the task of turning this policy into reality. The English invasion force of Jamaica landed on 10 May, 1655 without resistance and marched for Villa de la Vega, the capital. They found it almost empty and the Spanish, who had been weakened by smallpox, capitulated immediately. Some of the inhabitants fled to the north of the island and under Don Cristobal Arnoldo de Ysassi continued to harry the English until 1660, when they departed for Cuba. Jamaica was formally ceded to Britain by Spain under the Treaty of Madrid in

1670

The Second War The Anglo-Spanish Wars: The Second Anglo Spanish war broke out during the reign of Oliver Cromwell and was principally a trading dispute. The most significant battle of this war was the taking of Jamaica from Spain by Britain. This was during the height of the days of Buccaneers and pirates, and Jamaica became a well known pirate base for raiding the Spanish fleets. The English also joined forces with the French to fight the Spanish in Europe, most particularly at the battle of the

Dunes

Battle of the Armada The Anglo-Spanish Wars: The Spanish Armada was the great fleet sent by King Philip II of Spain in 1588 to invade England in conjunction with a Spanish army from Flanders. England's attempts to repel this fleet involved the first naval battles to be fought entirely with heavy guns, and the failure of Spain's enterprise saved England and the Netherlands from possible absorption into the Spanish empire. Philip had long been contemplating an attempt to restore the Roman Catholic faith in England, and English piracies against Spanish trade and possessions offered him further provocation. The Treaty of Nonsuch (1585) by which England undertook to support the Dutch rebels against Spanish rule, along with damaging raids by Sir Francis Drake against Spanish commerce in the Caribbean in 1585-86, finally convinced Philip that a direct invasion of England was necessary. He decided to use 30,000 troops belonging to the veteran army of the Spanish regent of the Netherlands, the duke of Parma, as the main invasion force and to send from Spain sufficient naval strength to defeat or deter the English fleet and clear the Strait of Dover for Parma's army to cross from Flanders over to southeastern

England

Battle of the Dunes The Anglo-Spanish Wars: Battle of Dunes took place June 14, 1658 and was a victory of French and British forces led by Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne over Spanish forces near Dunkirk. The victory led to the surrender of Dunkirk by Spain and eventually to the conclusion of the war with the Peace of the Pyrenees between France and Spain (1659). The battle occurred during a siege of Spanish-held Dunkirk by French troops under Turenne. The British, to whom the French had promised Dunkirk in return for forming an alliance against Spain, blockaded the port with their warships by sea. In addition, Britain's lord protector, Oliver Cromwell, sent his envoy William Lockhart with 6,000 infantrymen, veterans of the English Civil Wars, to reinforce Turenne on land. On June 13, 1658, a Spanish force led by Juan José de Austria arrived to relieve Dunkirk. Under Juan José was a rebel French force commanded by the renowned fighter Louis II de Bourbon, and several regiments of English, Scottish, and Irish royalists. Juan José had a strong superiority in cavalry, but he had left his artillery behind to quicken his advance. Problem- his army was in the sand dunes. Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne understood the difficult ground that Juan José had occupied and attacked him. Henri's French cavalry swept around the Spanish right wing on firm sandy beach exposed by the ebb tide, while British warships bombarded the Spanish reserves from the sea. On the Spanish left wing, Condé's cavalry charged with great resolution and despite heavy losses gained the upper hand, but their success was nullified by the failure of the Spanish ground soldiers to resist the Anglo-French troops. When the rest of the Spanish army retreated, one small body of royalists, about 300 strong, held out stubbornly and laid down their arms only on terms that they be allowed to rejoin their king, Charles II, at Ypres. The surrender of Dunkirk by the Spanish quickly followed and Dunkirk was presented to the British by

France

Famous Participants: The Second War: Sir William Penn: Father of the founder of Pennsylvania, Sir William Penn Sr. won Jamaica for Britain. Robert Blake: Military commander turned admiral who took a leading role in the Anglo-Dutch Naval Wars. Henry Morgan: English privateer who became one of the most notorious pirates of the Spanish Main. Don John of Austria: Illegitimate son of Charles V. Hero of the naval Battle of Lepanto. Briefly governed Spanish

Netherlands

Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife The Anglo-Spanish Wars: In 1654, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the republican Commonwealth, declared war on Spain, unleashing English fleets to attack Spanish shipping and colonies in the Caribbean and Atlantic. In 1657, Admiral Robert Blake destroyed a Spanish treasure fleet in a daring raid at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands. In spring 1657, Blake was blockading the Spanish port of Cadiz when he received news that a fleet carrying silver and gold from the Spanish colonies in the Americas was approaching. Consisting of seventeen ships, the fleet docked at Santa Cruz because it was unable to reach Cadiz. Aware of the oncoming threat, the Spanish carried their silver bullion ashore. On 20 April, Blake arrived with a fleet of twenty-three ships. Defending Santa Cruz was a castle and a string of smaller forts, which were all connected with a breastwork manned by musketeers. Blake sent twelve ships under Vice Admiral Richard Stayner to attack the Spanish fleet. Blake was to attack the fortifications and provide covering fire. Stayner sailed into the harbor and anchored with his broadside facing close to the Spanish. He was able to destroy twelve of the Spanish ships and capture five, which he intended to tow away as prizes. There was a change in weather which caused the winds to switch direction. Blake was forced to sink the Spanish ships and exit the Bay. Even though he had failed to capture the treasure, Blake was hailed as a hero in England, but died four months later on his way home. The Spanish, already low on funds to finance their war effort, were now unable to transport their treasure from the Canary Islands to

Spain

Battle of Flores Battle of the Armada The Anglo-Spanish Wars: Battle of Flores, August 30-31, 1591. The battle between Spain and England off Flores Island in the Azores was a Spanish victory, showing the resurgence of Spain's naval power after the debacle of the 1588 armada. For the English, the heroic fight put up by Richard Grenville's ship The Revenge became a national legend, commemorated in Tennyson's poem "The Revenge." Led by Thomas Howard, an English squadron sailed to the Azores in the mid-Atlantic, hoping to intercept the annual Spanish treasure fleet laden with silver and gold from the Americas. For months they waited for the treasure ships in vain, their crews progressively depleted by disease. Meanwhile, Spain organized a powerful fleet, under Alonso de Bazan, to attack Howard's squadron. The English were taking on water at Flores Island when the Spanish arrived on 30 August. All of the English ships slipped away except one. Lagging behind, Grenville's Revenge was rammed by a Spanish galleon and surrounded by enemy warships. Without a thought of surrender, he fought off Spanish boarding parties and kept his men firing, taking on five enemy ships simultaneously and succeeding in sinking one of them. The battle lasted fifteen hours. On the morning of 31 August, with further resistance impossible, Grenville gave the order to blow up his shattered ship rather than surrender. His crew refused to obey. Gravely wounded in the head, Grenville had the chagrin of seeing his ship taken over by the Spanish before he died of his injuries. The Spanish never succeeded in taking Revenge home as a prize; the ship sank in an Atlantic storm within 14

days

Battle of the Armada The Anglo-Spanish Wars: The Spanish Fleet: After nearly two years' preparation and prolonged delays, the Armada sailed from Lisbon in May 1588 under the command of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, who was an experienced administrator but had little sea experience. The Spanish fleet consisted of about 130 ships with about 8,000 seamen and possibly as many as 19,000 soldiers. About 40 of these ships were line-of-battleships, the rest being mostly transports and light craft. The Spaniards were conscious that even their best ships were slower than those of the English and less well armed with heavy guns, but they counted on being able to force boarding actions if the English offered battle, after which the superiority of the Spanish infantry would prove

decisive

Battle of Cadiz II The Anglo-Spanish Wars: In 1596 an English fleet led by the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh entered the harbor of Cadiz. They first raided the harbor and sunk many of the Spanish ships, and later landed a body of soldiers who captured the town. The Spanish however, had warning and were able to sink or hide much treasure before the raid. CLASSROOM NOTE: Sir Walter Raleigh had left the people at Roanoke Island in the Americas to participate, they

disappeared

The Battle of Cadiz: Tension between Protestant England and Catholic Spain grew during the reign of Elizabeth I. English privateers attacked Spanish ships, while the English aided Dutch rebels in their revolt against Spanish rule. In 1587, Elizabeth executed her Catholic cousin and heir, Mary Queen of Scots, for treason. In response, Philip prepared a large armada to invade England to overthrow Elizabeth and restore Catholicism. Elizabeth ordered Francis Drake to disrupt Philip's plans. The English fleet arrived at Cadiz on the afternoon of 29 April, and sailed through the defending galleys into the harbor. The English quickly sunk a Genoese merchantman and then began to attack the many ships at anchor, removing their cargoes and setting them alight. The Spanish defenders launched a number of hit-and-run attacks and managed to seize one isolated English ship. The next day, the English continued their attacks, despite the Spanish use of heavy onshore guns and fire-ships sent in to disrupt the English fleet. Unfavorable winds kept the English fleet in harbor a second night before Drake made his escape the next day. After he read a report on the raid, Philip II stated, "The loss was not very great, but the daring of the attempt was very great indeed." However, the English destruction of thousands of barrel staves, crucial to the manufacture of storage barrels, was to prove significant when the famed Spanish Armada of 1588 set out to sea to conquer England with too few barrels of food and

drink

Causes of the Anglo-Spanish Wars: England had broken with the church in Rome, and discriminated against Roman Catholics in its realm, while the Hapsburg empire, centered in Spain, was considered a loyal defender of the faith. Spain had exclusive claim to the new world, which caused much jealousy in England, and many of the most notorious privateers and pirates, who preyed on Spanish galleons, were protected by England. England had supported the ongoing protestant rebellion in the Netherlands against Spain. Although diplomatic relationships were maintained for many years between the two countries, since neither wanted war, eventually the tensions descended into open conflict. Even after a peace treaty was made between Spain and England in 1604 relations between the two countries continued to be strained. Spain and England were on opposing sides of almost every European conflict over the next two centuries, and they also opposed each other over territory and trading rights in the new world. Hostility towards Spain was largely associated with British anti-Catholicism both in Europe and in the Americas, and incidents such as the Spanish inquisition and corruption of the Spanish aristocracy were often exaggerated within British culture to emphasize the dangers of

popery

Introduction: The Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604) was an intermittent conflict between the kingdoms of Spain and England that was never formally declared. The war was punctuated by widely separated battles, and began with England's military expedition in 1585 to the Netherlands under the command of the Earl of Leicester in support of the resistance of the States General to Habsburg rule. The English enjoyed victories at Cádiz in 1587, and over the Spanish Armada in 1588, but lost the initiative upon the failure of the Drake Norris Expedition in 1589. Two further Spanish armadas were sent but were frustrated in their objectives owing to adverse weather. In the decade following the defeat of the Armada, Spain strengthened its navy and was able to safeguard its trade routes of precious metals from the Americas. The war became deadlocked around the turn of the 17th century during campaigns in Brittany and Ireland. The war was brought to an end with the Treaty of London, negotiated in 1604 between representatives of Philip III and the new king of England, James I, and was very favorable to Spain. Spain and England agreed to cease their military interventions in Ireland and the Spanish Netherlands, respectively, and the English renounced high seas privateering. Both parties had achieved some of their aims, but each of their treasuries had almost been exhausted in the

process

Battle of the Armada The Anglo-Spanish Wars: The English Royal Navy: The English fleet was under the command of Charles Howard, 2nd Baron Howard of Effingham; he was no more experienced an admiral than Medina-Sidonia but was a more effective leader. His second in command was Sir Francis Drake. The English fleet at one time or another included nearly 200 ships, but during most of the subsequent fighting in the English Channel it numbered less than 100 ships, and at its largest it was about the same size as the Spanish fleet. The English placed great reliance on artillery Their ships carried few soldiers but had many more and heavier guns than the Spanish ships. With these guns, mounted in faster and handier ships, they planned to stand off and bombard the Spanish ships at long

range

Battle of the Armada: Gales forced the Armada back to the port of Coruña (in northern Spain) for refitting, and it finally got underway again in July. The Armada was first sighted by the English off Lizard Point, in Cornwall, on July 29. The larger part of the English fleet was then at Plymouth, stuck on the shore, but by a neat maneuver was able to get to the windward, or upwind, side of the enemy and hence gain the tactical initiative. The to fleets met in battle on three encounters: Off Plymouth, July 31 Off Portland Bill, August 2 Off the Isle of Wight, August 4 The English harassed the Spanish fleet at long range and easily avoided all attempts to bring them to close action but were unable to inflict serious damage on the Spanish formation. The Armada reached the Strait of Dover on August 6 (July 27) and anchored in an exposed position off Calais, France. The English also anchored, still to windward (west of the Armada), and were reinforced by a squadron that had been guarding the narrow seas. The Armada had no safe port in which to wait for the King of Flanders, nor any means of escorting his small craft across the coastal shallows where Dutch and English warships cruised to intercept them. This defect in Spanish strategy was to prove disastrous. At midnight on August 7, the English launched eight fire ships before the wind and tide into the Spanish fleet, forcing the Spanish ships to cut anchors and stand out to sea to avoid catching fire. The Spanish ships' formation was thus completely broken. Whether through battle damage, bad weather, shortage of food and water, or navigational error, some ships foundered in the open sea while others were driven onto the west coast of Ireland and wrecked. Only 60 ships are known to have reached Spain, many of them too badly damaged to be repaired, and perhaps 15,000 men perished. The English lost several hundred, perhaps several thousand, men to disease but sustained negligible damage and casualties in action. The defeat of the Armada saved England from invasion and the Dutch Republic from extinction, while dealing a heavy blow to the prestige of the greatest European power of the age. Tactically, the Armada action has enduring historical significance as the first major naval gun battle under sail and as the moment from which, for over two and a half centuries, the gun-armed sailing warship dominated the

seas