Defeat Of The Spanish Armada

Not only was Elizabeth a great leader when it came to religion but her military accomplishments were also overwhelming. During this time, England"s main concern was to limit Spain"s power. So Spain and England went to war. England fought against the Spanish Armada. Sir Francis Drake led the English Fleet to a great victory. When the fight was over, only half the Spanish Armada returned, whereas every single English ship returned to England. This defeat was one of the greatest ever for England. Before this, Elizabeth had kept England out of war for 27 years. For more than three centurys, Englands ships ruled the water. After the war, Elizabeth made a friendship with Spain. Elizabeth also made many treaties with surrounding countries. England became the foremost power in Europe. Even Englands enemies loved Elizabeth. This woman changed the balance of power in Europe during her reign.

With the defeat of the Spanish armada in 1588, Spain began a steady decline to a second rate power. Consequently shifting their original goal of exploring to maintaining or colonizing what lands they still possess.

The cold, stormy night was all too familiar to the English. A devious plan by Spain's king, Philip II, was being formed to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I of England and rid the world of the English "heretics."1 It was a story of deception, false judgments, and poor planning. What was one king's dream turned into his country's nightmare. While the Spanish had bad leaders, the English had good ones. The Spanish had bigger, but slower ships, while the English had smaller and faster ships. The English knew the weather conditions and how to prepare for them, while the Spanish thought it would not be a problem. The English entered the battle in a calm manner, while the Spanish were overconfident. All of these

Spain under King Philip the second, was the most powerful nation in Europe at the time and sought to weaken Elizabeth’s reign and have her replaced. So, for the Queen to keep her power and avoid open conflict with Spain, England engaged in an “aggressive para-naval policy towards Spain; and sought to counter Spanish expansion in the New World. Privateering expeditions were under the guise of seeking new channels for English trade, but in fact the expeditions mainly attacked Spanish colonies in the New World. The English privateer John Hawkins, was one of the first hired and supported by England to attack Spanish colonies and trading vessels. Hawkins was the first Englishman to trade slaves in the New World, however he employed “warlike” methods of forcing trade and engaged a and defeated a Spanish fleet in the harbor of Vera Cruz. Another famous privateer who was utilized by the English government was Sir Francis Drake. Drake obtained a privateering commission from Queen Elizabeth in 1570, to strike at Spanish trading vessels and port cities. In the years that followed, he sacked the Spanish towns of Nombre de Dios and Panama, which in the process he captured a Spanish sliver mule train. Under Elizabeth's orders, Drake sent sail on December. 13, 1577, where he sought to raid Spain's Pacific colonies he knew were hardly defended. He circumnavigated the globe in the process and

In 1585 he settled about 100 men on Roanoke Island, but they did not settle and returned a year later. In 1587 he sent another group to settle that included a number of women and children. A supply ship was sent to the settlers but was delayed by the attack of the Spanish Armada on England in 1588. Help did not arrive until 1590, but it was too late and there was no one to be found. The attack of the Spanish Armada was spurred by King Phillip the 2nd. His motives were religious as England seemed committed to Protestantism as well as for economic and political reasons. An English fleet of 197 ships were able to conquer the invasion and led to Spain no longer being able to prevent the English from settling in the New World.

“War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed; peace is preferable to war in almost every contingency.” (War Message 1898) Those are the words of President McKinley in his inaugural address, on March 4th, 1897. McKinley wasn’t a man of war and certainly didn’t share the same views as Teddy Roosevelt did; even though he was the one who declared war against Cuba, he was led to that decision from the immense pressure from every corner of the U.S. Kagan believes that the Spanish American War took place because American egos were hitting the stratosphere and therefore believed that the U.S were better than most countries and should go and fix less developed ones. Another view Kagan had was that the primary reason for

The first of these conflicts occurred right after Charles’ ascendance to the throne between England and Spain and was in large part the result of a failed marriage treaty between Catholic Spain and Protestant England that would have married Charles to the Spanish Infanta.4 Charles had been tricked into a treaty that would have given Catholics increased rights in Protestant England, a provision that would have assuredly angered the people of England.5 In addition, the first Parliament of Charles’ reign passed two measures that doomed this conflict. First, it only granted Charles the right to collect customs duties for one year, instead of for life.6 Secondly, Parliament gave Charles only about a fourth of the money that he needed to adequately fund the war. However, Charles and Buckingham believed that if the army could loot a port and intercept the goods coming from the Spanish colonies in America, the treasury could be stocked up again. So despite the lack of funding, Charles chose to raise an army to set out for the Spanish port of Cadiz.7 However, the army was inadequately supplied with capable soldiers, ships, and provisions. “Most of the soldiers in this army were rogues

1. Was the Spanish American War in fact a "splendid little war"? What was splendid about it?

These natural circumstances prevented the English ships from being able to leave the harbor. There was almost nothing the English could do but wait for the tide to turn. If fact, Drake and Howard finished playing a game of bowls even after they got the news that the Spanish Armada was approaching. Their inability to leave the port set them at a disadvantage; however, the Spanish did not take the opportunity to attack them while they were practically defenseless. Instead, they kept on sailing towards Flanders. This lack of aggression on the Spanish part is due to the fact that the Armada did not have many offensive military strategies. If the Spanish were more prepared to fight a sea battle, they most likely could have sailed into Plymouth Harbor and attacked without much opposition. Nevertheless, that was not the case, so the Armada kept sailing and was forced to miss what could have been an opportunity for an easy and effective

Her most famous success story is the Spanish Armada. Phillip’s plan was to “win control of the English Channel, to rendezvous with the Duke of Parma off the coast of Holland, and to transport Parma’s army of some 30,000 men from the Netherlands across the Channel”(Doc 7). Elizabeth made a two step assault that first trapped Medina Sidonia in Calais Roads, where Parma could not join him for fear of the Dutch. Then, she sent fire ships in disguised as bomb-ships, which are deadly, and successfully confused the Spanish ships and forced them to flee. Finally, at the battle off Gravelines, the English used long-range guns to win. From this battle England gained prestige. The Spanish Armada proves that Elizabeth was a capable ruler who understood military strategy and the importance of protecting her country and

I believe that the reason the Spanish Armada failed to invade England was for two reasons; the first being due to bad weather, the second due to the hell burners. I chose bad weather and hell burners because without the strong winds the hell burners would not have reached their destination (the ships). The reason the hell burners are involved in the failure of the armada are because, they (the Spanish) were Catholics, so fire symbolises hell (from the name hell burner) and death. During the panic about the hell burners the Armada lost their defensive formation, ships and lives. If the weather was not bad they wouldn’t have needed to return back to get the ships repaired because there wouldn’t have been a storm. To conclude without bad weather

The U.S.S Maine was a battleship built by America between 1888 and 1895. It was sent to protect American Interests. On February 15 the forward gunpowder magazines exploded causing the U.S.S Maine to sink. This actual cause of the explosion is unknown but Spain ended up getting all the blame for this. So that raises the question, if the cause of the explosion was unknown, why do the Americans believe that the spanish are behind it? If the cause was unknown, then Spain should not be to blame because there is no actual concrete evidence that proves they were behind it. Americans are profound to believe that is was easier to blame Spain and use the exploding ship as a cover up for faulty equipment. That being said, Spain could be completely innocent

The Spanish armada started in 1588 and finished around a month later. The Spanish lost dramatically for several reasons. This essay will tell you why the Spanish failed so badly and why England won.

Between the years of 1535 and 1547, some sixty-six Spanish ships were captured by French corsairs (Lane 19). Shortly after in the 1550’s, the Spanish came to regret their passive defense strategy when French corsairs made their most punishing raids ever on the Spanish West Indies. They descended on colonies like Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba, and caused heavy destruction that they never really recovered from. Finally in the early 1560’s, Spain was forced to react with expensive long-term defenses. Since the Spanish waited so long to do so they not only lost wealth because of what was captured, but now they also had to spend money to protect what was left.

The battle between the Spanish Armada and the Royal Navy in 1588 was the culmination of half a century’s worth of feud between the two countries (Kallen, 2013). Like many other conflicts, it was rooted in geography. England, being located on an island, was therefore reliant on overseas trade. Spain controlled nearly all of the trade out of Europe, so therefore it was necessary to be allied with them if a country wished to trade. Unfortunately for