The Spanish Armada (48 page)

1587: 21 December
Charles Howard appointed to command English naval forces against the expected Spanish invasion of England. Dutch
station their ships to blockade Dunkirk.

1588: 9 February
Santa Cruz dies at Lisbon, aged sixty-one.

1588: 11 February
Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, Seventh Duke of Medina Sidonia, succeeds Santa Cruz as commander of the Armada, despite his lack of
naval experience and his reluctance: ‘But sir, I have not health for the sea, for I know by the small experience that I have had afloat that I soon become sea-sick and have many humours
[fevers].’

1588: 8 March
English and Spanish commissioners begin peace negotiations in Ostend, moving to Bourbourg, near Dunkirk, on
23 May
.

1588: 6 April
Elizabeth orders the lord lieutenants to arm their counties.

1588: 12 May
Henri III of France flees Paris after Catholic citizens riot; Guise in control of the French capital.

1588: 30 May
Armada sails from Lisbon.

1588: 3 June
Howard and Drake concentrate their naval forces at Plymouth, leaving Sir Henry Seymour’s squadron to guard the Dover Straits.

1588: 19 June
Armada puts into Corunna in north Spain after its supplies are found to be rotting and storms scatter the fleet off Cape Finisterre. Some
stragglers are driven north and are sighted off the Scilly Isles, southwest of Cornwall.

1588: 27 June
Armada council of war at Corunna advises Philip to delay sailing because of provisions shortage.

1588: 1 July
Philip orders the invasion to be launched as soon as possible, brushing aside Sidonia’s doubts and objections: ‘I have dedicated this
enterprise to God . . . Pull yourself together then and do your part.’

1588: 4 July
English fleet departs Plymouth for a pre-emptive strike on the Armada in Corunna but adverse winds and fears that the Spanish ships might escape
them, force Howard to return to Plymouth for resupply after two weeks at sea.

1588: 21 July
Armada sails from Corunna. Storms force four galleys to flee to the French coast;
Bazana
is wrecked near Bayonne. The carrack
Santa
Ana
seeks shelter in Le Havre, where she remains.

1588: 23 July
Elizabeth orders militia in England’s southern counties to mobilise.

1588: 26 July
Forty ships of the Armada separated from main force by gales; the last straggler rejoins on
30 July
.

1588: 29 July
Armada sights Cornwall’s Lizard peninsula.

1588: 30 July
Sidonia sends his flagship’s tender to reconnoitre the Cornish coast as the Armada enters the English Channel: a Falmouth fishing boat is
captured. Howard’s fleet is warped out of Plymouth.

1588: 31 July
English fleet sighted by the Armada: Sidonia hoists his holy banner as a signal for his fleet to prepare for battle. First shots are fired as
Howard attacks the centre and rear of the Armada. Fighting continues for four hours before the English fleet breaks off.
Nuestra Senõra del Rosario
, flagship of the Andalusian
squadron, later collides with the
San Salvador
which suffers an explosion, killing two hundred of her crew and badly damaging her after-decks and steering. She is taken in tow, but the
Rosario
is involved in a second collision, with the
Santa Catalina
.
Rosario,
unable to steer, is abandoned.

Sidonia sends a message to Parma that arrives in Dunkirk on
6 August
.

1588: 1 August
Drake captures the
Rosario.
Sidonia sends another message to Parma.

1588: 2 August
Fighting off Portland Bill.

1588: 3 August
Howard divides his fleet into four squadrons of around twenty-five ships each, commanded by himself, Frobisher, Hawkins and Drake.

1588: 4 August
Fighting off the southern tip of the Isle of Wight. Sidonia writes again to Parma seeking supplies of small-calibre shot.

1588: 5 August
Both Spanish and English fleets becalmed.

1588: 6 August
Armada anchors in Calais Roads, four miles (6.44 km) off the French town and twenty-four (38.62 km) from Dunkirk, where Parma, still in Bruges,
had not begun embarkation of his invasion army.

Anglo-Spanish peace talks at Bourbourg broken off.

1588: 7–8 August
English send in eight fireships at midnight – scattering the Armada. The galleass
San Lorenzo
runs aground outside Calais
harbour after colliding with the
Rata Encoronada
.

Parma begins to embark his invasion army; 16,000 men join their vessels at Nieuport.

1588: 8 August
Battle of Gravelines. During the nine-hour action,
María Juan
sinks. The badly damaged galleons
San Felipe
and
San
Mateo
are run aground off Ostend and are captured by Dutch ships but
San Felipe
later sinks.

The Armada is in danger of wrecking on shoals off the coast of Flanders.

Parma completes embarkation of troops at Dunkirk.

1588: 9 August
Council of war aboard Armada flagship
San Martin
decides to re-enter English Channel to escort Parma’s invasion force. If winds
are contrary, however, it would head around the north coast of Scotland to return to Spain.

1588: 10 August
Sidonia tells Armada crews they are returning to Spain. Seymour’s squadron remains in English Channel; remainder of English fleet pursue
Armada northwards.

1588: 12 August
Short of ammunition and food, the English fleet abandons the chase as the Armada passes the Firth of Forth in Scotland.

1588: 19 August
Elizabeth makes her speech of defiance at Tilbury Fort overlooking the Thames estuary.

1588: 20 August
Elizabeth orders the disbanding of her army.

1588: 21 August
Armada rounds the northern coast of Scotland and enters North Atlantic.

1588: 31 August
Parma stands down his invasion fleet.

1588: 1 September–5 November
At least twenty-seven Armada ships founder on the north and west coasts of Ireland and Scotland.
San Juan de
Sicilia
blown up in Tobermory Bay, by John Smollett, one of Walsingham’s agents.

1588: 21 September
Sidonia returns to Santander in northern Spain. He reports to Philip: ‘The misfortunes and miseries that have befallen us . . . are
the worst that have been known on any voyage.’ Of the 129-strong Armada that had departed for England, at least fifty had been wrecked or sunk, with 12,500 casualties.

1588: 22 September
Sir William Fitzwilliam, lord deputy of Ireland, orders the arrest and execution of all Spanish survivors from the shipwrecks on the west
coast of Ireland.

1588: 6 November
Hospital ship
San Pedro Mayor
wrecked on Bolt Tail, Devon.

1588: 12 November
Spanish Council of State urges the continuation of the war with England. Philip told them: ‘I, for my part, shall never fail to strive
for the cause of God and the good of these kingdoms, as much as I can.’

1588: 24 November
Service of thanksgiving for victory over Armada in St Paul’s Cathedral, London.

1589: 14 April
Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, tried in Westminster Hall for arranging a secret Mass inside the Tower for the success of the Armada. He is
attainted and condemned to death for treason. Elizabeth I does not sign his death warrant.

1589: 28 April
Privately funded English expedition of 126 vessels and 23,000 men under Drake and Sir John Norris departs for attack on Armada survivors in
Santander and to instigate a Portuguese rebellion to put the pretender Dom Antonio on the Portuguese throne.

1589: 4 May
English fleet arrives off Corunna and attacks the town.

1589: 26 May
English forces land at Peniche, forty-five miles north of Lisbon, arriving in the suburbs of the Portuguese capital on
2 June
.
After an ineffective attempt at a siege, they retreat to Cascaes.

1589: 29 June
English troops sack Vigo and set it ablaze. Drake fails to find the Spanish treasure fleet.

1589: 8 July–September
English expedition returns to Plymouth almost empty-handed. Eleven thousand soldiers and sailors had died of disease or had been
killed in action.

1589: Late October
Court of Inquiry into Drake’s and Norris’s expedition.

1590: 6 April
Death of Walsingham at his London home in Seething Lane, near the Tower of London, probably from testicular cancer, leaving debts of
£27,000. He is buried the following night in Old St Paul’s Cathedral.

1594: 15 November
Death of Sir Martin Frobisher in Plymouth after he received a gunshot wound at the siege of the Spanish-held Fort Crozon during the battle
for Brest, in western France. His heart is interred in St Andrew’s Church, Plymouth the same day and his body later buried in St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London.

1595: 19 October
Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, dies from malnutrition – some claim poison – in the Tower. His body is
buried in the church of St Peter ad Vincula, within the fortress, but it is exhumed and reburied in 1624 in the Fitzalan Chapel at Arundel Castle and again in the Catholic cathedral in Arundel in
1971. He was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929 and canonised by Paul VI on
25 October 1970
.

1596: 12 January
Death of Sir John Hawkins from dysentery off Puerto Rico.

1596: 28 January
Death of Sir Francis Drake from dysentery: buried at sea near Puerto Bello, Colón, Panama.

1596: 20 June
Howard and Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex, attack Spanish naval forces at Cadiz. Sidonia’s slow response was blamed for creating the
opportunity for the English to sack the city.

1597: 22 October
Lord High Admiral Charles Howard created First Earl of Nottingham.

1598: 4 August
Death of Burghley at his London house, Burghley House in The Strand. Buried in St Martin’s Church, Stamford, Lincolnshire, on
29
August.

1598: 13 September
Death of Philip in El Escorial, near Madrid, following severe attacks of gout, dropsy and fever, aged seventy-one after reigning as king of
Spain for forty-two years and two hundred and forty days.

1603: 24 March
Death of Elizabeth I at Richmond Palace, from bronchopneumonia and septicaemia caused by her rotten teeth, aged sixty-nine after reigning for
forty-five years and one hundred and twenty-seven days.

1604: 28 August
James I of England ratifies the Treaty of London ending the nineteen-year-old Anglo-Spanish war. The Treaty halts English support for the
rebellion in the Spanish Netherlands and stops further English attacks on Spanish trading vessels.

1624: 14 December
Death of Charles Howard, Second Baron Effingham and first Earl of Nottingham, at Haling House, Croydon, Surrey.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

ENGLAND

Edward VI
(1537–53). Long-awaited legitimate heir of Henry VIII by his third wife, Jane Seymour. Proclaimed king, 31 January 1547. His govern- ments
imposed Protestant policies upon state and church, including the use of prayer books in English. Died of tuberculosis after an attack of measles; Greenwich Palace, 6 July 1553.

Mary I
(1516–58). Fourth and only surviving child (from at least six preg- nancies) of Henry VIII and his first wife, the Spanish princess Katherine of
Aragon, widow of Henry’s elder brother Arthur, who died in 1502. Proclaimed queen, 18 July 1553. Returned England to Catholicism and married
Philip
, son of Charles V of Spain, at
Winchester on 25 July 1554. Died childless from ovarian or stomach cancer, St James’ Palace, London, 17 November 1558.

Elizabeth I
(1533–1603). Daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Succeeded her half-sister
Mary I
as Queen, 17 November 1558.
Catholic Europe saw her as an illegitimate usurper and heretic. Re-established Protestantism as state religion; privately encouraged English privateers to attack Spanish assets and provided
military and financial assistance to the Dutch rebels in the Spanish Netherlands. She was mercurial, sometimes unable to decide key issues, and notoriously penny-pinching. Died unmarried, probably
from broncho-pneumonia and dental sepsis, Richmond Palace, 24 March 1603.

ELIZABETH
’
S GOVERNMENT AND COURT

Cecil, William, Baron Burghley
(1520–98). Statesman and chief minister to Queen Elizabeth. Secretary to Lord Protector Somerset and imprisoned in the
Tower on Somerset’s fall, 1549. One of two Secretaries of State to Edward VI, 1550–3 and administrator of Princess Elizabeth’s lands. Knighted 11 October 1551. On accession of
Elizabeth, again Secretary
of State. Created Baron Burghley, 25 February 1571 and appointed Lord High Treasurer, July 1572. Deaf from 1590 and a martyr to gout. Died 4 August
1598, after collapsing, probably from a stroke or a heart attack, at his London house, Burghley House in The Strand. Robert Cecil, his only surviving son by his second wife, became the
queen’s principal adviser.