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SCENE 1: Introduction Following Henry VIII accession to the English crown, many developments occurred. Firstly England rejected the papacy and all its corruptive ways after it did not allow Henry to divorce his wife to marry another. After he died others ruled in rapid succession until Elizabeth ascended the throne. She was the ruler that focused England on its destiny. Firstly she was not Catholic and the pope would have been happy if she had been removed and she was the leader of a powerful nation. Her foreign policy on the seas was that any man could raid Spanish ships under the condition that the crown received a certain proportion of the bounty. Names such as Drake and Hawkins are still well known, as they were some of the infamous buccaneers of the Queen. They created so much havoc in the Caribbean Sea that it could not go unnoticed. When Mary Queen of Scots (a catholic) was executed, the Spanish king Phillip II decided to act. The Pope never believed that an invasion could be successful so promised a large reward to the first Spanish soldier set foot on English soil. SCENE 2: Preparation of the Armada Preparations began in May 1587 when the famous but ageing commander Santa Cruz was employed. Work on the fleet went much slower that expected because of many unforeseen complexities. To make matters worse, 3 months after preparations had begun, the buccaneer Drake raided the harbor in Cadiz where the fleet was being constructed firing wood and supplies as well as sailing out with the treasure ship San Felipe. Then in February 1588, Santa Cruz died to be replaced by the Duke of Medina Sidonia who knew that he was unsuited for the job. Phillip II however forced him to assume command. The Duke was appalled when he saw the conditions of the fleet and its men and went about preparing the fleet for sail. After fixing many of the problems and the departure date having been further delayed the Fleet set sail. SCENE 3: The advance of the Invincible Armada On May 9 1589 the Invincible Armada, as it had come to be known, set sail and the British awaited in suspense. When the Armada was sighted on British shores for the first time, signal fires were lit across the country and the message moved like a wave across the country taking, as it is said, less than twenty minutes to cross it. The Fleet progressed well and maintained formation (a classic crescent formation) until the British assault in Calais harbor. The British sent in fire ships into the harbor setting fire to many of the Spanish ships. Also let down by their allies in the Netherlands, the Armada was forced to move North around the top end of Britain under hot pursuit by the British. They had too few shallow water warships to protect the transports as their deep-water ports had been taken into rebel hands. SCENE 4: Bitter Defeat By the time the fleet had rounded Scotland and Ireland and returned to Spain, the Armada had been reduced to about half its size and only one squadron had not lost a ship, the Elite wing of the navy, the Trans-Atlantic defense force. Phillip was then said to have began setting up plans for a new force or Armada to invade England once more, but Spain was no longer the country it had once been. It had accrued large foreign debts, despite large income from its colonies, and would never be able to finance another Armada. From that point on, the Spanish empire can be said to have started its decline. If the period of Charles V had been the high point of Spain’s power, then the period after the failure of the ‘Invincible’ Spanish armada can be said to have been the beginning of its decline. For more detail on the decline of Spain see POLITICS SECTION “Reasons for the failure of the Spanish Empire”
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