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State Papers Relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada
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Historical SummaryBOTH Napoleon and Hitler, intoxicated with success, paused at the Channel, fretted in a manner befitting conquerors unaccustomed to defeat, consulted their astrologers, and turned back. In weighing their chances of successfully invading Britain neither could have failed to recall an earlier enterprise which met disaster. Humiliated by constant attacks of English freebooters on the Spanish treasure fleet and by English aid to the revolting Netherlands, the Spanish king, Philip II, determined in 1588 to invade England and reduce her to subjection. He assembled a great flotilla of one hundred and thirty ships of war, carrying 20,000 soldiers and 8,000 seamen, relying upon infantry and hand-to-hand tactics to carry the day. England responded to the great invasion threat with an outburst of patriotism seldom matched in the annals of any nation. A fleet of 180 ships, commanded by such naval heroes as Drake, Howard, Frobisher, Hawkins, and Raleigh, and manned by men trained to the sea, was made ready, as well as two armies numbering over sixty thousand men. The Spaniards relied upon galleons, tall ships of large tonnage, designed to grapple at close quarters with the enemy, and upon galleasses and galleys, partially or wholly rowed, unsuited to the waters of the Atlantic and to the sea tactics of their opponents. The English depended upon small, speedy, and easily maneuvered ships, more heavily armored and actually more formidable than the Spanish vessels. The two fleets met in the English channel near the British coast in late July, 1588. In a series of involved naval engagements, extending over several days the Spaniards suffered a catastrophic defeat. Storms and high seas broke upon the Spanish ships with such fury that thousands of Spaniards perished and their bodies were cast up by the seas on British strands. The destruction of the Spanish Armada shattered the legend of Spanish invincibility and heralded the beginning of the British Empire. In the first selection below Sir John Hawkins, hero of the occasion, describes the battle still in progress at the time he was writing. Philip was not easily reconciled to defeat. He repaired his losses and made it necessary for the English to take the battle to the Spanish coast and its approaches. When, in 1591, Lord Thomas Howard and Sir Richard Grenville lay off the Azores ("At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay"), a formidable Spanish fleet was sent to intercept them. Howard escaped, but Grenville ignored orders to retreat and stood his ground, fighting for fifteen hours against fifteen Spanish men-of-war—a gallant stand comparable with the exploits of John Paul Jones and the Jervis Bay. Defying all the rules of naval warfare, Grenville, who ate wineglasses out of bravado and was a swashbuckler of the same school as Raleigh and Captain John Smith, refused to surrender, and died of his wounds a few hours after his ship was captured—the only English war vessel taken by the enemy in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Sir Walter Raleigh, who participated with distinction in the destruction of the Spanish Armada, wrote an account, published in Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, immortalizing the last fight of the Revenge, a narrative which is the inspiration for Tennyson’s celebrated poetic interpretation. "God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?"
Key QuoteSir John Hawkins and Sir Walter Raleigh describe how the Spanish Armada came to grief in the English Channel: "God of battles, was there ever a battle like this in the world before?"
Laughton
1895
England Repels Invasion
[1588]
Sir John Hawkins’s account:
My bounden duty humbly remembered unto your good lordship. I have not busied myself to write often to your lordship in this great cause, for that my lord admiral doth continually advertise the manner of all things that doth pass. So do others that do understand the state of all things as well as myself.
We met with this fleet somewhat to the westward of Plymouth upon Sunday in the morning, being the 21st of July, where we had some small fight with them in the afternoon. By the coming aboard one of the other of the Spaniards, a great ship, a Biscayan, spent her foremast and bowsprit, which was left by the fleet in the sea, and so taken up by Sir Francis Drake the next morning. The same Sunday there was, by a fire chancing by a barrel of powder, a great Biscayan spoiled and abandoned, which my lord took up and seat away. The Tuesday following, athwart of Portland, we had a sharp and long fight with them, wherein we spent a great part of our powder and shot, so as it was not thought good to deal with them any more till that was relieved.
The Thursday following, by the occasion of the scattering of one of the great ships from the fleet which we hoped to have cut off, there grew a hot fray, wherein some store of powder was spent; and after that little done until we came near to Calais, where the fleet of Spain anchored, and our fleet by them; and because they should not be in peace there, to refresh their water or to have conference with those of the Duke of Parma’s party, my lord admiral, with firing of ships, determined to remove them; as he did, he put them to the seas; in which broil the chief galleass1 spoiled her rudder, and so rode ashore near the town of Calais, where she was possessed of our men, but so aground that she could not be brought away.
That morning being Monday, the 29th of July, we followed the Spaniards, and all that day had with them a long and great fight, wherein there
was great valor showed generally by our company. In this battle there was spent very much of our powder and shot; and so the wind began to blow westerly, a fresh gale, and the Spaniards put themselves somewhat to the northward, where we follow and keep company with them. . . .
Our ships, God be thanked, have received little hurt, and are of great force to accompany them, and of such advantage that with some continuance at the seas, and sufficiently provided of shot and powder, we shall be able, with God’s favor, to weary them out of the sea and confound them. . . .
At their departing from Lisbon the soldiers were twenty thousand, the mariners and others eight thousand; so as in all, they were twenty-eight thousand men. Their commission was to confer with the Prince of Parma, as I learn, and then proceed to the service that should be there concluded; and so the duke to return into Spain with these ships and mariners, the soldiers and their furniture being left behind. Now this fleet is here and very forcible, and must be waited upon with all our force, which is little enough. There should be an infinite quantity of powder and shot provided and continually sent abroad.
And so, praying to God for a happy deliverance from the malicious and dangerous practice of our enemies, I humbly take my leave. From the sea, aboard the Victory, the last of July, 1588.
The Spaniards take their course for Scotland; my lord doth follow them. I doubt not, with God’s favor, but we shall impeach their landing. There must be order for victual and money, powder and shot, to be sent after us.
Your lordship’s humbly to command,
JOHN HAWKYNS
1A three-masted galley, with guns on each side.
Contents:
Chicago: John Hawkins, "England Repels Invasion: Sir John Hawkins’s Account," State Papers Relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, ed. Laughton in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1951), Original Sources, accessed April 20, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=CXA21HNG9ZMYI93.
MLA: Hawkins, John. "England Repels Invasion: Sir John Hawkins’s Account." State Papers Relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, edited by Laughton, in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, edited by Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris, Harrisburg, Pa., Stackpole Co., 1951, Original Sources. 20 Apr. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=CXA21HNG9ZMYI93.
Harvard: Hawkins, J, 'England Repels Invasion: Sir John Hawkins’s Account' in State Papers Relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, ed. . cited in 1951, History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. , Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, Pa.. Original Sources, retrieved 20 April 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=CXA21HNG9ZMYI93.
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