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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: APO-ARN |
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ARMADA, THE . The Spanish or Invincible Armada was the great
fleet
dates
fleet
paper strength. On the loth of June, when the Armada had rounded Cape Finisterre, it was scattered by squalls. Some of the vessels went on to the appointed rendezvous at the Scilly Isles, but the majority anchored on the north coast of Spain. Medina Sidonia, who found many defects in his fleet, did not finally sail till the 12th of July. On the English side all the royal navy, and such armed merchant ships as could be obtained from the ports, had been collected under the command of the lord high admiral Howard of Effingham, who had with him Hawkins, Drake and Frobisher as subordinate admirals. The number of vessels is put at 197, but the majority were very small. It is impossible to state with confidence what were the relative numbers of guns carried by the two fleets. The Spaniards had more pieces, but their gunnery was inferior. The English fleet carried 16,000 or 17,000 men, of whom the large majority were sailors. About too of their ships were at Plymouth with the lord high admiral. The others were in the Downs with Lord Henry
squadron
squadron
Henry
measures
great
governor of Calais. On the 29th of July the scattered Spaniards, who were quite unable to restore order, were attacked by the English off Gravelines. The engagement was hot, and, though the English did not succeed in taking any of the Spaniards, they destroyed some of them, and their superiority in sailing force and gunnery was now so obvious that the duke of Medina Sidonia lost heart. His large vessels wereindeed so helpless that only a timely shift of the wind saved many of them from drifting on to the banks of Flanders. Officers and men alike were completely discouraged. It was now recognized that an invasion of England could not be carried out in face of the more active English fleet and the proved impossibility of bringing about the proposed union with Parma's army. Suggestions were made that the Armada should sail to Hamburg, refit there, and renew the attack. But by this time the Spanish force was incapable of energetic action. Medina Sidonia and his council could think of nothing but of a return to Spain. As the wind was westerly, and the English fleet barred the way, it was impossible to sail down the Channel. The only alternative was to take the route between the north of Scotland and Norway. So the Armada sailed to the north. Lord Howard followed, after detaching Lord Henry Seymour to remain in the Downs. He watched the Spaniards to the Firth of Forth. The English had at that time little knowledge of the seas beyond the Firth, and they were beginning to run short of food and ammunition. On the 2nd of August, therefore, they gave up the pursuit. Medina Sidonia continued to the north, till his pilots told him that it was safe to turn to the west. Up to this time the loss of the Spaniards in ships had not been considerable. If the weather had been that of a normal summer, they would probably have reached home with no greater loss of men than was usually inflicted on all fleets of the age by scurvy and fever. But the summer of 1588 was marked by -a succession of gales of unprecedented violence. The damaged and weakened Spanish ships, which were from the first greatly undermanned in sailors, were unable to contend with the storms. It is not possible to give the details of the disasters which overtook them. Nineteen of them are known to have been wrecked on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. The crews who fell into the hands of the English officers in Ireland were put to the sword. Many more of them disappeared at sea. Of the total number of the vessels originally collected for the invasion of England one-half, if not more, perished, and the crews of those which escaped were terribly diminished by scurvy and starvation.The failure of the Armada was mainly due to its own interior weakness, and as a military operation the English victory was lessglorious than some other less renowned achievements of the British fleet. But the repulse of the great Spanish armament was an event of the first historical importance. It marked the final failure of King Philip II. of Spain to establish the supremacy of the Habsburg dynasty and of the Church of Rome, which he considered as being in a peculiar sense his charge, in Europe. From that time forward no serious attempt to invade England was, or could be, made. It became therefore the unconquerable supporter of that part of Europe which had thrown off the authority of the pope.. The Armada had much of the character of a crusade. Though Philip II. had political reasons for hostility to Queen Elizabeth, they were so intimately bound up with. the struggle between the Reformation and the Counter Reformation that the secular and the religious elements of the conflict cannot be separated from one another. The struggle was therefore not one between armed forces in national rivalry alone. It was a trial of- strength between two widely different conceptions of life and of the statebetween the medieval and the modern worlds. The volunteers of all ranks who came forward in large numbers on both sides were fighting for a religious cause as well as for the interests of their respective peoples. End of Article: ARMADA, THE If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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