The Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604) was an intermittent conflict between the kingdoms of Spain and England that lasted for 19 years. Most of the fighting was done at sea, including the destruction of the Raid on Cadiz in 1587, the Spanish Armada in 1588, the English Armada in 1589, and several raiding expeditions during the 1590s. Some of the fighting was done on land in Ireland, France, and the Netherlands, with the English sending expeditionary forces to France and the Netherlands to fight Spain, and Spain attempting to assist Irish rebellions in Ireland. The war was brought to an end by the 1604 Treaty of London, and it had no major results.
Background[]
Queen Mary I of England's marriage to Prince Philip II of Spain in 1554 promised to ensure lasting good relations between the two countries, though the wedding prompted violent protests in England. "Bloody Mary" began a programme of harsh repression during her restoration of Catholicism, and she was able to face down her opponents. Protestant dangers were all too evident. The French Wars of Religion, which started in 1562, was a sign of this, as was the Dutch Revolt in the Spanish Netherlands. Mary's death in 1558 was both a personal loss for Philip as well as a diplomatic loss; her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth I of England took the throne.
War[]
The English privateer Francis Drake spotted the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion off the coast of Ecuador on 1 March 1579, having trailed it discreetly throughout the day. His ship, the Golden Hind, close in as darkness fell, and his crew opened up with cannon and musket fire, shattering the ship's mast. The shocked crew surrendered, and the English took the Spanish cargo of gold and silver. Forays like this were not viewed as piracy, however, as English vessels that stopped Spanish ships on the high seas did so with Her Majesty's blessing. The Crown benefited financially by issuing "letters of marque" to seamen like Francis Drake, Martin Frobisher, and John Hawkins, granting them warrants to inspect, capture, and destroy foreign vessels.
Inconveniencing Spain, Europe's richest Catholic power, was one thing, but Elizabeth's interference in the Spanish Netherlands was another. The Earl of Leicester's 1585 expedition there in support of the Dutch rebels was the final indignity for Spain. Open hostilities broke out, and Francis Drake stepped up his plundering across the Atlantic. In January 1586, with Frobisher, he led a party ashore to sack Santo Domingo in Hispaniola, and he looted Cartagena de las Indias several weeks later. With rumors growing of a sizable Spanish armada (fleet) that would take the war to England, Drake did to Spain what he had done to its colonies. In April 1587, he sacked Cadiz, sinking ships and looting warehouses. The raid became known as the "Singeing of the King of Spain's Beard"; the damage was minor, but the affront to Philip II was outrageous.
By 1588, Spain was ready, and its Armada Invencible was to travel up the English Channel to Flanders. There, the Duke of Parma would be waiting with an army 30,000-strong to invade England. His troops would sail in small boats, the Armada escorting. In May, the Armada left the Iberian Peninsula, including 24 warships and 47 armed merchantmen, along with unarmed transport ships (carrying up to 20,000 extra infantrymen) and smaller craft.
Commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, Spain's Armada travelled up the Channel without much trouble. However, Parma's army had been held up in Flanders by the Watergeuzen, Dutch privateers who raided foreign ships. On 7 August 1588, the Armada, waiting at Calais, proved vulnerable when the English dispatched fireships to float into its lines. Panicked Spanish crews cut their anchor cables and the Armada broke free, its defensive formation quickly lost. Lord Howard of Effingham's English warships fired at will, sinking four and damaging several more. Parma's invasion was foiled, and the Armada was forced to push on into the North Sea. The voyage home proved costly, stormy waters claiming some 60 ships and thousands of lives.
England sent out its own armada in 1589, but this endured heavy losses. In 1591, Spain reasserted its naval superiority at the Battle of the Azores, when an attempt to capture its treasure fleet was thwarted. Lord Howard led a joint attack on Cadiz in 1596 with the Earl of Essex. The treasure ships they were hoping to take were scuttled and sent to the bottom of Cadiz harbor by their quick-thinking commander, for retrieval later; the English raiders sacked the city, but left empty-handed.
In 1595, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone and Hugh O'Donnell had fitful Spanish backing when they led an Irish rebellion. In 1601, Spain landed soldiers on the coast of County Cork in support, but the groups did not rendezvous successfully. Instead, the Spanish were pinned down by the English at the siege of Kinsale, and they were decisively defeated in 1602. Philip II died in 1598 and Elizabeth I in 1603, and their successors had made peace with the Treaty of London by 1604.
Aftermath[]
The defeat of the Spanish Armada had sent English confidence soaring. However, its Irish neighbor would prove a problem, as would the Dutch Republic. The conflict of Spain gave the English a fright, as there was a new sense of vulnerability. After the events of 1601, Ireland appeared a susceptible "back door" for invasion, its people Catholic in religion and prone to rebellion. The English clamped down in the north by establishing the "Plantation of Ulster", in which loyal Protestant Lowland Scots settled in the northern lands of the O'Donnells and O'Neills. This transformed the political culture of northern Ireland, but the strategy did not stop France from repeatedly trying to exploit Irish insurgencies towards the end of the 18th century. In addition, England's status as Europe's leading Protestant power was to be challenged by a buoyant Dutch Republic as the 17th century wore oin, leading to the Anglo-Dutch Wars.