Spanish Armada: The Deadly Voyage Home
At midnight off Calais, eight English fireships drifted toward the Spanish Armada on the wind and tide. It was the night of August 7-8, 1588, in the Gregorian calendar, and the anchored Spanish ships faced the danger of spreading fire. Their crews cut or slipped anchor cables and moved out to sea, breaking the fleet's formation. None of the Spanish vessels caught fire from the fireships. English guns battered them at Gravelines the following morning, but the greatest losses came afterward. The long return around Scotland and Ireland exposed damaged ships and depleted crews to the autumn gales of the North Atlantic.
Calendar note: the campaign dates in this account use Gregorian, or New Style, dating. The sighting off the Lizard was July 19 Old Style, equivalent to July 29 New Style; the fireship attack on the night of July 28-29 Old Style corresponds to August 7-8 New Style. Royal Museums Greenwich gives July 19 and the night of July 28 because it follows the Julian calendar then used in England. Pope Gregory XIII's 1582 bull Inter gravissimas dropped about ten days to restore the spring equinox, while England kept the old reckoning until its Calendar Act moved the country across in September 1752, so English and Spanish dates for 1588 stand ten days apart. These are two ways of dating the same events.
King Philip II had sent the fleet to invade England in conjunction with an army from Flanders. He wanted to restore Roman Catholicism in England, while English attacks on Spanish trade and possessions gave him further reasons for war. The Treaty of Nonsuch in 1585 committed England to supporting Dutch rebels against Spanish rule. Francis Drake's raids on Spanish commerce in the Caribbean added another provocation. Philip's plan required naval forces to clear the Strait of Dover so the duke of Parma could bring 30,000 veteran troops from Flanders to southeastern England.
After nearly two years of preparation and repeated delays, the Spanish Armada sailed from Lisbon in May 1588. The duke of Medina-Sidonia commanded it after the death of the marquess de Santa Cruz in February. Medina-Sidonia was an experienced administrator with relatively little experience at sea. World History Encyclopedia counts 132 ships carrying 17,000 soldiers and 7,000 mariners. Only about forty vessels were line-of-battle ships; most of the rest were transports or light craft. Spanish officers knew their ships were slower and less heavily armed with large guns than their opponents, so they hoped to close and board with superior infantry.
Charles Howard commanded the English fleet, with Drake as his second in command. The English relied on fast, maneuverable ships carrying heavy artillery and relatively few soldiers. Their intention was to fire from a distance and avoid Spanish boarding attacks. Gales had forced the invaders back to A Coruna for repairs before they sailed again in July. English observers sighted them off Lizard Point on July 29. The English ships at Plymouth gained the upwind position, taking the tactical initiative. Encounters off Plymouth, Portland Bill, and the Isle of Wight harassed the Spaniards but did little serious damage to their formation.
The Spanish Armada reached the Strait of Dover on August 6 and anchored off Calais in an exposed position. Parma received the first certain news of its advance that day and began embarking his troops. That process needed six days. The fleet had no safe harbor in which to wait, and it could not escort his small invasion craft through coastal shallows patrolled by Dutch and English warships. English reinforcements meanwhile joined the opposing fleet. The intended meeting between army and navy had become a dangerous pause, with Spanish ships anchored offshore while the troops they needed were still preparing to cross.
The fireships ended that pause by scattering the formation and leaving the Spaniards without their anchors. At dawn on August 8, English ships closed to effective range off Gravelines. Spanish crews could not respond effectively with their heavy guns, and much of their return fire came from small arms. Three Spanish ships sank or were driven ashore; others suffered severe damage and casualties. The English eventually ran short of ammunition and broke off, following at a distance. By the next morning, westerly winds were pushing the Spanish Armada toward the shoals of the Zeeland banks, threatening another disaster beyond the gun battle.
A last-minute wind shift allowed a course northward. With the English fleet and west wind preventing a return to Parma, the Spaniards had to sail home around northern Scotland. The English turned back for provisions after their opponents passed the Firth of Forth, ending the fighting. For the Spanish Armada, the ordeal continued through rough Atlantic weather. Battle damage, navigational errors, and shortages of food and water combined with the gales. Some vessels foundered offshore, while others were driven onto Ireland's western coast. Fewer than seventy ships are known to have reached Spain, many too damaged for repair. Perhaps 15,000 men perished.
English losses followed a different pattern. Damage and casualties during combat were negligible, but disease killed several hundred men and perhaps several thousand. The campaign also demonstrated a change in naval warfare: major battles under sail could be fought entirely with heavy guns, rather than decided chiefly through boarding. Gun-armed sailing warships went on to dominate the seas for more than two and a half centuries. Charles Howard later commissioned tapestries commemorating the victory. Those works were subsequently lost in a fire, and a later project sought to recreate them as paintings.
- Royal Museums Greenwich, Elizabeth I and the Spanish Armada: The Armada in sight and Defeat of the Spanish Armada (Julian dates) — www.rmg.co.uk
- Mark Cartwright, World History Encyclopedia, Spanish Armada (2020): preparations, 132 ships, 17,000 soldiers and 7,000 mariners; fireship account follows Royal Museums Greenwich — www.worldhistory.org
- Wikipedia, Spanish Armada: campaign context, tactics and losses — en.wikipedia.org
- Gregory XIII, Inter gravissimas (1582), English translation, Wikisource — en.wikisource.org
- Alan Longstaff, National Maritime Museum, Calendars from around the world (2005), Gregorian calendar, PDF page 14: 1582 reform and Britain’s September 1752 adoption — www.rmg.co.uk