1588 Timeline of the Spanish Armada

The origins of the Armada are related to the execution of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots by Elizabeth I. With hopes of retaliation and removing the Protestant monarch Philip II launched the Armada. If you look at the start of the timeline you’ll see the event the “Singeing the King of Spain’s Beard”. This was routing by Francis Drake of the Spanish fleet where he destroyed over 100 ships. Carrying out these strikes delayed the Armada by a year.

The Armada consisted of 130 ships which sailed to England in May 1588. After an initial engagement with the English fleet near Portsmouth. Following this the English fleet was scattered and had to regroup on 22 July before attacking again near Portland the next day. This encounter was crucial as it forced the Spanish fleet to move to Calais.

Here they were attacked by English fireships with several ships being lost. The Spanish fleet tried to withdraw but could not move up the French coast as it was blocked by the Dutch navy. The ended up sailing round the top of Scotland and past Ireland. The English fleet stopped pursuing them on 2nd August 1588.

What’s interesting from the timeline is that you can clearly see that the famous Elizabeth I Tilbury speech took place some time after the Spanish fleet had been dispatched. The speech is one of the most famous in British history and was a means for Elizabeth to rally the troops. It always seen as a before the battle speech but actually it took place several days after the fighting had concluded. It’s fair to say that the English couldn’t be sure that the fighting had ended but it’s still interesting to see that Elizabeth’s great speech was a carefully planned publicity stunt to portray herself as a great leader. You can read the speech at the British Library – Elizabeth’s Tilbury Speech or read more about it Wikipedia – Speech to the Troops at Tilbury.

It took the Spanish ships several more months to finally return to Spain. Many of the Spanish ships had lost or abandoned their anchors which meant that they were incapable of securing shelter. Of the 55,000 men thought to be part of the Armada only 10,000 survived with most of the deaths the result of disease and hunger.

 

Books:

Described as “A dramatic blow-by-blow account of the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English fleet” this book covers the campaign in a lot of detail. Of course the Spanish fleet was really destroyed by the weather and this is described in the book.

 

I’ve yet to read this title but the reviews look very good and it’s available as a kindle edition so it’s on my list.