Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
Sir Francis Drake was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580. This included his incursion into the Pacific Ocean, until then an area of exclusive Spanish interest, and his claim to New Albion for England, an area in what is now the U.S. state of California. His expedition inaugurated an era of conflict with the Spanish on the western coast of the Americas, an area that had previously been largely unexplored by Western shipping. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for three constituencies; Camelford in 1581, Bossiney in 1584, and Plymouth in 1593.
Philip II, also known as Philip the Prudent, was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from 1580, and King of Naples and Sicily from 1554 until his death in 1598. He was jure uxoris King of England and Ireland from his marriage to Queen Mary I in 1554 until her death in 1558. He was also Duke of Milan from 1540. From 1555, he was Lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands.
The phrase Protestant Wind has been used in more than one context, notably:
- The storm that lashed the Spanish Armada in 1588. The wind wrecked the Spanish fleet and thus saved England from invasion by the army of Philip II of Spain. The English made a commemorative medal saying 'He blew with His winds, and they were scattered'.
- The favourable winds that enabled William of Orange to invade England in 1688, when King James II was deposed in the Glorious Revolution.
Revenge was an English race-built galleon of 46 guns, built in 1577 and captured by the Spanish in 1591, sinking soon afterwards. She was the first of 13 English and Royal Navy ships to bear the name.
The Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) was an intermittent conflict between the Habsburg Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of England. It was never formally declared. The war included much English privateering against Spanish ships, and several widely separated battles. It began with England's military expedition in 1585 to what was then the Spanish Netherlands under the command of the Earl of Leicester, in support of the Dutch rebellion against Spanish Habsburg rule.
The English Armada, also known as the Counter Armada or the Drake–Norris Expedition, was an attack fleet sent against Spain by Queen Elizabeth I of England that sailed on 28 April 1589 during the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) and the Eighty Years' War. Led by Sir Francis Drake as admiral and Sir John Norris as general, it failed to drive home the advantage that England had gained resulting from the failure of the Spanish Armada in the previous year. The Spanish victory marked a revival of Philip II's naval power through the next decade.
Admiral Sir William Wynter was an admiral and principal officer of the Council of the Marine under Queen Elizabeth I of England and served the crown during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604).
The Tudor navy was the navy of the Kingdom of England under the ruling Tudor dynasty (1485–1603). The period involved important and critical changes that led to the establishment of a permanent navy and laid the foundations for the future Royal Navy.
The Spanish Armada was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat without previous naval experience appointed by Philip II of Spain. His orders were to sail up the English Channel, link up with the Duke of Parma in Flanders, and escort an invasion force that would land in England and overthrow Elizabeth I. Its purpose was to reinstate Catholicism in England, end support for the Dutch Republic, and prevent attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas.
Lyon's Whelp or Lion's Whelp is the name of a historical British ship, it is also found in the Bible in Genesis 49:9 “Judah is a lion’s whelp." Popular today, the name was given to a series of 16th-century naval ships, then in the 17th century to a fleet of ten full rigged pinnaces commissioned by the first Duke of Buckingham.
Bonaventure was a 47-gun galleon purchased by the Royal Navy in 1567. She was the third vessel to bear the name. She was commanded by Sir Francis Drake during his 1587 attack on Cadiz, and a year later was part of the fleet to face the Spanish Armada.
Singeing the King of Spain's Beard is the derisive name given to a series of attacks by the English privateer Francis Drake against the Spanish in the summer of 1587, beginning in April with a raid on Cádiz. This was an attack on the Spanish naval forces assembling in the Bay of Cádiz in preparation for the planned expedition against England. Much of the Spanish fleet was destroyed, and substantial supplies were destroyed or captured. There followed a series of raiding parties against several forts along the Portuguese coast. A Spanish treasure ship, returning from the Indies, was also captured. The damage caused by the English delayed Spanish preparations for the Armada by at least a year.
The Sea Dogs were a group of English privateers authorised by Queen Elizabeth I to raid England's enemies, whether they were formally at with war with them or not. Active from 1560 onwards until Elizabeth's death in 1603, the Sea Dogs primarily attacked Spanish targets, both on land and on sea, particularly during the Anglo-Spanish War. Members of the Sea Dogs, including Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake, also engaged in illicit slave trading with Spanish colonies in the Americas.
The Battle of Pinos was a naval engagement between a Spanish fleet under Admiral Bernardino Delgadillo y Avellaneda and the surviving ships of Francis Drake's expedition to the Spanish West Indies, now in command of Drake's lieutenant, Sir Thomas Baskerville, which took place off the Island of Pinos during the Anglo-Spanish war of 1585. The Spanish squadron was victorious, capturing two English ships.
The 2nd Spanish Armada also known as the Spanish Armada of 1596 was a naval operation that took place during the Anglo–Spanish War. Another invasion of England or Ireland was attempted in the autumn of 1596 by King Philip II of Spain. In an attempt at revenge for the English sack of Cadiz in 1596, Philip immediately ordered a counter strike in the hope of assisting the Irish rebels in rebellion against the English crown. The strategy was to open a new front in the war, forcing English troops away from France and the Netherlands, where they were also fighting.
The 3rd Spanish Armada, also known as the Spanish Armada of 1597, was a major naval event that took place between October and November 1597 as part of the Anglo–Spanish War. The armada, which was the third attempt by Spain to invade or raid the British Isles during the war, was ordered by King Philip II of Spain in revenge for the English attack on Cadiz following the failure of the 2nd Spanish Armada the previous year due to a storm. The Armada was executed by the Adelantado, Martín de Padilla, who was hoping to intercept and destroy the English fleet under Robert Devereux the 2nd Earl of Essex as it returned from the failed Azores expedition. When this was achieved, the Armada would go on to capture either the important port of Falmouth or Milford Haven and use those places as a base for invasion.
The Armada Memorial is a monument on Plymouth Hoe, Plymouth, Devon, England. Built in 1888, the monument celebrates the tercentenary of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, which was sighted by English captains stationed in the city. It is a granite structure, decorated with bronze crests and a statue of Britannia.
The Newfoundland Expedition also known as Bernard Drake's Newfoundland Expedition was an English naval expedition that took place during the beginning of the declared Anglo-Spanish War in the North Atlantic during summer and autumn of 1585. The area of conflict was situated mainly in an area known as the Grand Banks off present day Newfoundland. The aim of the expedition was to capture the Spanish and Portuguese fishing fleets. The expedition was a huge military and financial success and virtually removed the Spanish and Portuguese from these waters. In addition the raid had large consequences in terms of English colonial expansion and settlement.
The Armada Tapestries were a series of ten tapestries that commemorated the defeat of the Spanish Armada. They were commissioned in 1591 by the Lord High Admiral, Howard of Effingham, who had commanded the Royal Navy against the Armada. In 1651 they were hung in the old House of Lords chambers, which at the time was used for the meetings of the committee of Parliament. They remained there until destroyed in the Burning of Parliament of 1834.
