Most people know of the Armada as a battle between the Spanish galleons and an English commander Sir Francis Drake. But it was actually a bit more complicated than that.
King Philip of Spain had the backing of the Pope, who wanted England back under Catholic control and he treated the invasion as a holy war – a crusade.
The words Spanish Armada in Spanish are 'Grande y Felicísima Armada', meaning Great and Most Fortunate Navy". But it was not to be a fortunate navy at all.
The fleet that set out to invade England did not have a full army. Its plan was to sail to the Dutch colony to pick up the army of the Duke of Parma. So twenty two Spanish navy galleons set out as escort to 108 merchant ships that had been converted to troop carriers.
It was very hard to move a huge fleet of vessels in secret. Amongst other reasons, ships like this only sailed at a few miles an hour and so took days to make the journey. Also spies in the Spanish court and English ships out at sea told the queen what was going on.
The English fleet is often said to be smaller than the Spanish fleet. This is not really true in naval terms. The English ships were bigger, and although they had fewer guns than the Spanish, they could reload faster. Remember, the Spanish only had 22 navy ships. Nevertheless, they had more guns than the English and their hulls were much stronger. This is because their ways of doing battle was to ram the other ships, and they needed to survive the ramming.
The English fleet outnumbered the Spanish with 34 ships of the royal navy and 163 other ships including some of the fast and very manoeuvrable ships that were usually used by privateers.
What happened next was important. What the English had been doing was watching and waiting. There is a very famous story of Sir Francis Drake being told about the Armada while he was playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe. He went on playing his game. This is not actually very surprising. He already had a fleet shadowing the Spanish, and they were moving very slowly and due to go to a port. In any case he could not get out of harbour because there was a rising tide. That is why he (might have) carried on playing bowls. In any case, it was going to be easy to catch up with the Spanish.
The Spanish ships chose to sail along the English side of the English Channel because it was more sheltered water. Remember, the ships of the time were small and not good in severe storms.
The news of the progress of the Armada was sent to London by a system of beacons that had been built all the way along the south coast.
When the Spanish passed Plymouth, they knew the English fleet was in there. An experienced Spanish commander might have attacked them, running in on the rising tide. But Sidona sailed on, so that, as soon as the tide turned, 55 English ships were able to sail out to their rear.
The commander of the English fleet was Admiral Lord Howard, with Sir Francis Drake as Vice Admiral. The Rear Admiral was another privateer, Sir John Hawkins. They knew that they had very little ammunition and gunpowder (remember England was a poor country). So they had to find a way of making every shot count.
The English tried to pick off the ships at the rear of the Armada. As a result of this, two Spanish ships collided while trying to avoid the English. Sir Francis Drake turned his ship back to loot the Spanish ships, but in the process he also got a large supply of much needed gunpowder.
On 27 July, the Armada anchored off Calais in a tightly packed defensive formation. At midnight on 28 July, the English set alight eight of their own warships to act as fireships and sent them into the Spanish fleet. The Spanish fleet scattered, but managed to regroup outside the tiny port of Gravelines. The English now closed in for the kill.
What the Spanish did not know, was that the English were dangerously low on gunpowder by this time. But the Spaniards had another fatal flaw in their plan. They intended to fire a single broadside at the English, and then close in to ram the English before beating them by hand to hand fighting. But the English knew of this tactic and so kept their distance.
So the English fleet got the Spanish to fire their broadside while out of range. It took the Spanish a long time to reload their guns, and before they could do this the English closed in and fired. They were much faster at reloading, so volley after volley hit the Spanish ships. The Spanish ships had more priests on board than trained gunners! Yet the strongly built Spanish ships were difficult to sink, and by four in the afternoon the English had literally run out of ammunition and had to pull back.
In all this time just five Spanish ships sank. However, many other Spanish ships were severely damaged, making it hard for them to stand up to any bad sea storms.
