Rise Of Power: The English Rise To Power

Charles II (reigned 1660 - 1685) helped to grow English power in the Americas and Asia through marriages, alliances, and land grants, essentially taking over land that other nations had once owned.

In the war of 1346 the English battled the French. The English were led by King Edward III. They took out the much larger French army.(2) The purpose was to claim France. They succeeded and held it for over 200 years.

Then from 1665 to 1667, the second Anglo-Dutch War is fought and the Dutch were victorious. This War was caused by King Charles II’s hate of the Dutch politics and its housing of former English radicals and exiles and for an increase of England’s naval development and revenue.

For example, the Protestant Dutch States were in a long, drawn-out conflict with Philip II’s Catholic kingdom of Spain. The presence of a large and powerful Catholic army just across the English Channel sent alarmed calls for English intervention on behalf of the Netherlands, to prevent the complete military defeat of the Dutch and cut off the spread of Catholic power on the continent. However, the true reason for this was the Low Countries’ significance to English strategic concerns: the Dutch revolt could occupy Philip II’s resources, thereby preventing him from invading England, and also serve as a buffer state against powerful Catholic states. Elizabeth I was reluctant to engage directly in a continental military conflict, which would

According to Kerrily Sapet’s book Elizabeth I of England, there were numerous reasons Catholic Spain wanted to go to war with England. One was because for many years the Queen’s privateers had pestered Philip’s ships, stealing their cargoes. Queen Elizabeth supported Francis Drake’s attempt “to circumnavigate the globe” (Sapet 124). In Francis Drake’s journey he came upon unguarded treasure along the South American coast. Three years later he returns to England with two hundred tons of Spain’s gold and silver and upon his return is knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1581.

When Mary the virgin queen died, Philip quickly proposed to her despised younger sister Elizabeth I. She refused the marriage but wanted La Peregrina, something which Philip naturally did not give. When this happened, pirates pillaged Spanish ships and Elizabeth turned a blind eye. Infuriated, Philip sent the Spanish Armada to take England. The fall of the Spanish navy ushered in England's Golden Age.

The following paragraphs will discuss England’s defeat of King Philip II’s Spanish armada and later discuss how this defeat was essential to the development and reign of Elizabeth I as

Thirdly, The Dutch rebelled against the Spanish in 1568. This battle went on for over one hundred years and Elizabeth supported the Dutch. Due to these factors, King Philip of Spain attacked England however there were many different reasons for the failure of The Armada in the Summer of 1588. This Essay will attempt to justify those reasons and decide whether defeat was down to luck or mistakes.

The Spanish Armada was a fleet of armed ships that attempted to invade England in the year of 1588. The Spanish Fleet consisted of over 130 ships and more than 29,000 men, most were soldiers. Many of the ships were low in weapons and experienced soldiers that could work these weapons, others were low in ammunition. King Phillip named the Duke of Medina Sidonia to command the Armada. During the 1500's the Spanish were thought to have had a dominating Navy until in 1588, when they were defeated by the English.The Spanish Armada failed because, Spanish used huge ships and large guns and English ships were faster with guns, plan required meeting of ships and army communication was hard. Also, Phillip chose an inexperienced leader for fleet.

I believe that King Philip II of Spain was a great King and the idea of The Spanish Armada was a good idea that he had come up with. The Spanish Armada is about a boat that set sail in July 1588 by the Spanish, and it was ordered by the catholic King Philip II of Spain to invade England and take down the protestant Queen Elizabeth I. Queen Elizabeth I, was catholic but then became protestant. The Church did not like her decision and they wanted her to become catholic again, so the Pope encouraged King Philip II of Spain if he could try to make England catholic again. King Philip agreed to do what the Pope had asked of him. For years, Philip was in need of a Queen and since Elizabeth was not wed, he proposed to Elizabeth over and over again, but Elizabeth wanted to make all the decisions and Elizabeth did not nor did she ever get married, the main reason was because she did not want a man to tell her what to do, she did not want to marry someone who was in need of a Queen, but for someone who truly loves her for her. “I do not want a husband who honours me as a queen, if he does not love me as a woman.” So she declined all of Philip’s marriage proposals. Philip’s task for the Spanish Armada was to overthrow protestant England lead by their protestant Queen, Elizabeth I. Philip’s plan for the Spanish Armada was to swing the fleet by the Netherlands, pick up his army there, and transport them across the English Channel for a ground invasion.

In an 1839 Speech to Parliament, Palmerston elucidated how the interests of the English nation was the ‘polar star’ of his policies, and should remain the primary guiding principle for those at the helm of British politics. It was through defining and propelling British interest abroad that Palmerston was able to gain attention verging on notoriety within domestic politics, not through his image within his own party, or within Commons debate, but through using foreign policy to rally public support. Palmerston was able to use foreign policy to advance his standing domestically through making the British interest abroad a primary issue. He did this by moulding his Patriotic image in the newspapers to highlight his devotion to British concerns. It is thus unsurprising that Lord John Russell famously remarked that ‘his [Palmerston’s] heart always beat for the honour of England’.2

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the English were poor, weak, and no match for France or Spain, the great powers of Europe. However, within a century, they were able to rise from thievery and pirating to rival colonists, eventually defeat both France and Spain to become the single superpower of Europe, and create the first British Empire. They mimicked early strategies and mostly failed, however, the English citizens were deeply involved with the colonial process, and together they learned from their mistakes and ended up creating solutions such as the navy and Bank of England that created cycles enormous prosperity and stability. The English utilized a diverse network of people to set up many attempts at colonization, so the English were able to overcome and adapt to a large variety of challenges. Thus, the first British Empire was a large-scale experiment involving people of all social classes, but with little centralization of power or control. The first British Empire was unique in its social, economic, and geographic diversity, yet ultimately, the same characteristics that allowed for their success acted as double edged swords, unravelling the strength and confidence of the first Empire and leading to its metaphysical collapse.

Although the English Revolution began in 1640, there was discontent and conflict during the Stuart dynasty which lasted between 1603 and 1640. Between 1603 and 1625 King James I ruled England. He was unsuccessful in unifying Scotland and England, there was steep religious division between the Church of England, which was “Anglo-Catholic”, and the Protestant Nonconformists, political division between the crown and parliament consistently disagreeing over the constitution, fiscal policy, taxation, religious policy, and foreign policy, and England’s beginning colonization of North America and the Caribbean.

But the Spanish ships had stronger firepower. Keep in mind that the English ships were much faster than the Spanish ones, resulting in that the English ships could easily keep out of range from the Spanish cannons. Nobody successes to sink any ship after this first day. After a lot of weeks of fighting and sailing, the Spanish ships started to wear down. Food and water was almost consumed. The Spanish fleet plotted to sail west across Ireland and the west side of Scotland but they had absolutely no idea about the Gulf Stream that drew the ships north of Ireland and Scotland instead. The Spanish Armada lost a lot of ships at Lee Shore, a location at the west side of Ireland with a lot of cliffs and mountains. After the war the English fleet lost 50-100 men and 400 wounded. They lost no ships either. And the Spanish people lost a lot more...

Before Spain started turning downward, they were not only a European, but global power. This “began with the marriage (1469) of queen Isabel of Castile (1474–1504) and king Ferdinand of Aragon (1479–1516), whose realm included Aragon proper, Valencia and Catalonia” . Spain became united and brought together separate territories and they were able to extended their authority to North Africa and Italy. “The Spanish crown ruled an empire that included modern Portugal (to 1640) and Belgium, much of the Italian peninsula, Mexico, and large portions of South America and the Caribbean” . Spain was the leader and power during the late 16th century, but even the most powerful and successful leaders have their downfall.