The Spanish Armada Essay

Prosperous Political aspects of Spain’s rise was diminutive, however it brutally terminated their Golden age. Ferdinand and Isabella made Spain a strong country with many territories in Europe and the America’s. In contrast one can see the corrupt policies of Philip II and there enormous effect on Spain’s decline. Spain lost a great deal of land trying to convert people to Catholicism. In their efforts to convert and spread Christianity during the thirty years war, Spain lost complete control of the Netherlands. In addition to losing the Netherlands, the English defeat of the Spanish armada completely crushed Spain, not only

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.

There were two big rivals, France and England, had been more powerful. Spain got treasure by mining gold and silver. Spain moved

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

The diifficult Spanish Caribbean fleet under Adm. Pascual Cervera was located in Santiago harbour in Cuba by U.S. reconnaissance (history.com). An army of regular troops and volunteers under Gen. William Shaft, and including Theodore Roosevelt and his 1st Volunteer Cavalry, the “Rough Riders”, landed on the coast east of Santiago and slowly advanced on the city in an effort to force Cervera’s fleet out of the harbour (history.com). Cervera led his squadron out of Santiago on July 3 and tried to escape westward along the coast. In the occuring battle all of his ships came under heavy fire from U.S. guns and were beached in a burning or sinking condition. Santiago surrendered to Shafter on July 17, effectively ending the war.

The people on the boat were headed towards Cuba to regulate the interests of Americans after a revolt against Spaniards. Due to the explosion America declared war which is known as the Spanish-American War of April 1898.

16.Philip II- King of Spaniards and Portuguese; under his reign the Spanish empire reach its peak of influence through the revolt of the Netherlands wasn’t surpressed and they lost the “Invincible Armada” in an attempt to invade England.

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

Spain goal was to save the native people of the Americas from heathenism and prevent them of Protestantism.

time America was trying to be at peace with Spain without having any more ships invaded. Due

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