English intervention in the Netherlands achieved one thing. It provoked Philip II into direct action against England, partly as revenge, partly as crusade, and partly as a means of knocking England out of his Dutch problem. His decision to launch an amphibious assault against England was a fateful one. Preparations for the vast expedition occupied most of 1587, and were set back by Drake’s famous raid on Cadiz. But the Armada set sail in summer 1588, and, notwithstanding persistent harrying in the English Channel from the large, experienced, superbly equipped and brilliantly led English navy, it made its way to its rendezvous off Calais. There the deficiencies of Philip Il’s strategy became painfully apparent, as Farnese’s invasion barges could not get out to join Medina Sidonia’s deep-water fleet without exposing themselves to the guns of the smaller and nimbler English and Dutch vessels. The fleet at anchor was stampeded by English fireships, and then scattered by the prevailing winds. Attempting to return home by circumnavigating the British Isles, about half the Spanish ships were sunk or wrecked by storms or enemy fire. Thousands of men were lost, dozens of ships. The English victory was total, their losses negligible.
Much of Elizabeth’s reputation has been built upon her display of courage in 1588, when the landing of Spanish troops, the terror of western Europe, seemed imminent. Her appearance at the muster of her forces at Tilbury, when she made
Above: The Spanish Armada off the French coast. From George Carleton’s Thankfull Remembrance, p. 144. By the 1620s, when this pamphlet was published, the ‘Protestant wind’ here shown blowing along the Channel was already a fixture in the national mythology
Below: Chart of the course of the ‘Invincible Armada’,
Right: Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe and daring naval (or piratical) exploits earned him fame throughout Europe. Known to Spaniards as ‘el dragon’, Drake became for a time the bogeyman for the Spanish, as Napoleon (‘Boney’) did for nineteenth-century England.
Section of John Speed’s map of the route of the Armada, 1588-89, indicating the formation the Armada held as it sailed up the English Channel, and some of the action as the English employed ‘fire-ships’ to break it up while at anchor off Dunkirk.
Her famous address to the troops, was an inspiring moment in the national myth. Although Elizabeth’s army, commanded by Leicester, was large, it was arguably fortunate that it was not put to the test. The superiority of Spanish troops and tactics on land was probably as marked as the superiority of English ships and tactics at sea. But for an island power, that was the right way round, so the English victory cannot be put down solely to good fortune, however important the role of poor strategy and dire weather.
The defeat of the Armada was the high point of Elizabeth’s reign. England had seen off the most powerful invasion force launched against her since the Norman Conquest, and if this was as much because of the weather as because of the strength of the nation’s defences, so much the better in an age which interpreted the chances of wind and weather as the judgements of the Lord. As far as the English at the time were concerned, their victory came down to divine providence and defensive prudence. It was God’s favour to England in general, and to Elizabeth in particular, which explained his providence. Victory was celebrated in verse and music, art and literature and chronicle. Elizabeth herself appeared as the saviour of her people.
Above: Preaching at Paul’s Cross, London. Londoners flocked to hear sermons at the open-air pulpit in the cathedral churchyard.
On Sunday 24 November 1588, a stately procession escorted Elizabeth to the cathedral for an official service of thanksgiving for victory over the Armada, which included a sermon preached from this pulpit by John Piers, Bishop of Salisbury.
Left: Title page of a thanksgiving service issued in 1588 for use in churches to celebrate the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
World History
