That April, the Queen authorized Francis Drake to make a preemptive strike against the Spanish.Īfter sailing from Plymouth with a small fleet, Drake launched a surprise raid on the Spanish port of Cadiz and destroyed several dozen of the Armada’s ships and over 10,000 tons of supplies. It was impossible for Spain to hide the preparations for a fleet as large as the Armada, and by 1587, Elizabeth’s spies and military advisors knew an invasion was in the works. The fleet would then guard the army as it was ferried across the English Channel to the Kent coast to begin an overland offensive against London. The Spanish plan called for this “Great and Most Fortunate Navy” to sail from Lisbon, Portugal, to Flanders, where it would rendezvous with 30,000 crack troops led by the Duke of Parma, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands. The Spanish Armada was a naval force of about 130 ships, plus some 8,000 seamen and an estimated 18,000 soldiers manning thousands of guns. That same year, Philip began formulating an “Enterprise of England” to remove Elizabeth from the throne.
Tensions between Spain and England flared in the 1580s, after Elizabeth began allowing privateers such as Sir Francis Drake to conduct pirate raids on Spanish fleets carrying treasure from their rich New World colonies.īy 1585, when England signed a treaty of support with Dutch rebels in the Spanish-controlled Netherlands, a state of undeclared war existed between the two powers.
Philip was particularly incensed by the spread of Protestantism in England, and he had long toyed with the idea of conquering the British Isle to bring it back into the Catholic fold. King Philip II’s decision to attempt an overthrow of Queen Elizabeth I was several years in the making.ĭespite their family connections-Philip had once been married to Elizabeth’s half-sister, Mary-the two royals had severe political and religious differences and had engaged in a “cold war” for much of the 1560s and 1570s.
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