Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)

File:Loutherbourg, Spanish Armada.jpg

Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 1588-08-08 by Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg, painted 1796, depicts the battle of Gravelines.

The Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604) - Conflict between the kingdoms of England, under Elizabeth I, and Spain, under Philip II. The war opened with victory for the English at Cádiz in 1587 and over the Spanish Armada in 1588, but the English were unable to follow up their victories, and the war went increasingly in Spain's favour.

Several further wars between England and Spain were fought in the 17th and 18th centuries. See Anglo-Spanish War.

Causes

Philip's motives were both religious and political. The Protestant Elizabeth I of England had antagonised Catholics by making attendance at Church of England services compulsory and instituting imprisonment for the saying of or attending at mass.

The activities of English privateers on the Spanish Main in the years leading up to the war had severely dented the Spanish treasury. Economic competition between the two countries had sparked tensions since Sir John Hawkins initiated English participation in the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1562, soon gaining royal support. The Spanish regarded Hawkins' actions as illegal smuggling to their colonies in the West Indies, leading them to surprise and sink several ships in a slaving expedition led by Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake at San Juan de Ulúa, near Veracruz, Mexico, in September 1568. San Juan de Ulua served as the diplomatic incident that soured the Anglo-Spanish relations, which had hitherto been amicable, and in 1569 the English detained the treasure ships sent by the Spanish to supply their army in the Netherlands. Drake and Hawkins, amongst others, took up privateering as a way to break the Spanish monopoly on Atlantic trade.

Outbreak

War broke out in 1585. Drake sailed for the West Indies and sacked Santo Domingo, Cartagena de Indias, and San Agustín in Florida. England joined the Eighty Years' War on the side of the Dutch Protestant United Provinces, led in revolt by William the Silent, and against Spain. Philip II planned an invasion of England, but in April 1587 his preparations suffered a setback when Drake burned 37 Spanish ships in harbour at Cádiz. In the same year, the execution of Mary I of Scotland on 28 February outraged Catholics in Europe, and her claim on the English throne passed to Philip. On 29 July, he obtained Papal authority to overthrow Elizabeth, who had been excommunicated by Pope Pius V, and place whomever he chose on the throne of England.

Invasion

Main article: Spanish Armada

The Armada engagement revolutionised naval warfare and provided valuable seafaring experience for English oceanic mariners. Furthermore, the Armada's defeat enabled the English to persist in their privateering against the Spanish and continue sending troops to assist Philip II's enemies in the Netherlands and France.

Main article: English Armada.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada was not a decisive battle, and the "Protestant storm" did not finish the war. An "English Armada" under the command of Drake and Sir John Norreys was dispatched in 1589 to torch the Spanish Atlantic navy, which had largely survived the Armada encounter and was refitting in Santander A Coruña and San Sebastian in northern Spain. It was also intended to capture the incoming Spanish treasure fleet and expel the Spanish from Portugal - ruled by Philip since 1580 - in favor of the Prior of Crato. Had the expedition succeeded in its objectives, Spain may have been compelled to sue for peace, but owing to poor organisation and excessive caution the invading force was repelled with heavy casualties on both sides and failed to take Lisbon. Sickness then struck the expedition, and finally a portion of the fleet led by Drake towards the Azores was scattered in a storm. In the end, Elizabeth sustained a severe loss to her treasury, for she had been compelled into a joint venture in order to finance the expedition, and was first among the stockholders.

In this period of respite, the Spanish were able to refit and retool their navy, partly along English lines. The pride of the fleet were the Twelve Apostles - a dozen enormous new galleons - and the navy proved itself far more effective than it had been before 1588. A sophisticated convoy system and improved intelligence networks frustrated English privateering on the Spanish treasure fleet during the 1590s. This was best demonstrated in the failures of expeditions by Sir Martin Frobisher and John Hawkins in the early part of the decade, as well as in the repulse of a squadron led by Effingham in 1591 near the Azores. It was in this battle that the Spanish captured the English flagship, the Revenge, after a courageous last stand by its captain, Sir Richard Grenville (although the Spanish did lose many vessels in a hurricane days afterward). Throughout the 1590's, the convoy escorts enabled the Spanish to ship three times as much gold and silver than in the previous decade.

Both Drake and Hawkins died in a raiding expedition against Puerto Rico, Panama, and other targets in the Spanish Main in 1595–1596, a severe naval setback in which the English suffered unusually heavy losses in soldiers and ships. Also in 1595, a Spanish force under Don Carlos de Amesquita landed troops in Cornwall, western England. Amesquita's soldiers raided and burned Penzance and surrounding villages, seized supplies, held Mass, and sailed away before they could be confronted.

In 1596, an Anglo-Dutch expedition managed to sack Cádiz, causing significant loss to the Spanish fleet, and leaving the city in ruins. But the Spanish commander had been allowed the opportunity to torch the treasure ships in port, and 12 million ducats went to the bottom - a treasure far in excess of that won in the previous raid on Cadiz. The English suffered failure in the Islands Voyage against the Azores in 1597, and became embroiled in the Nine Years War in Ireland in 1595, when Ulster lords Hugh O'Neill and Red Hugh O'Donnell rose up against English rule with fitful Spanish support.

In the meantime, the Spanish attempted two further Armadas, in 1597 and 1598: the first was destroyed in a storm off northern Spain, and the second was frustrated by adverse weather as it approached the English coast undetected. King Philip II died in 1598, but his successor, Philip III, continued the war.

At the end of 1601, a final armada was sent north, this time a limited expedition intended to land troops in southern Ireland to assist the rebels in their campaign against Elizabeth's government. The Spanish entered the town of Kinsale with 3,000 troops and were immediately besieged by the English. In time, their Irish allies arrived to surround the besieging force, but were defeated at the Battle of Kinsale. Rather than attempt to hold Kinsale as a base to harry English shipping, the Spanish accepted terms of surrender and returned home, while the Irish rebels hung on, only to surrender in 1603, just after the death of Elizabeth. When James I came to the English throne, his first order of business was to negotiate a peace with Philip III of Spain, which was concluded in the Treaty of London, 1604.

Effects

For the English, the continuing, increasingly unsuccessful, war with Spain delayed English settlement in North America until the early Stuart period. This enabled Spain to consolidate its then still fragile New World empire. (See Spanish Empire)

Spain remained Europe's great power into the 17th century, when defeats against France in the Thirty Years' War and the rise of Dutch naval supremacy destroyed its sea power. While the Armada defeat did not enable England to supplant Spain as a pre-eminent naval power, or engage in substantial American colonisation, it served as an inspiration to later generations, particularly during the Anglo-French naval clashes of the 18th century, when Britain finally emerged as Europe's leading sea power and colonising nation.

References

Winston Graham The Spanish Armadas (reprint 2001) ISBN 0141390204