book on eglands naval supremacy after defest of spanish armada

To that party belonged Drake among the seamen, Waisingham among statesmen, and Walter Raleigh, who was courtier, statesman, soldier, and seaman by turns. The party of aggression would have set themselves to the annihilation of the Spanish power, the complete destruction of Spanish fleets, the seizure of the Spanish dominion in America, the separation of Spain from Portugal, whose crown Philip had appropriated eight years before, claiming through his mother Isabella, the sister of the two last kings, both of whom died childless. From that time forward, Spaniards and Englishmen met on the seas with a perfect confidence that if the Spaniards were only three to one they had no chance of victory.

After the defeat of the Armada, however, no invasion was possible, and had it been possible, the invading force would have been isolated in England, completely cut off from supplies or reinforcements.Īs matters stood, the dominion of the 'Seas, hitherto claimed by Spain, had passed completely out of her hands, and the destruction of the Armada secured the deliverance of the United Provinces as well as that of England herself.

Parma's task would not have been an easy one, but the possibility that there would have been a Spanish conquest of England cannot be denied. They would have found awaiting them the English levies gathered at Tilbury, commanded nominally by the incompetent Leicester, but probably in actual fact by the experienced captain, Sir John Norreys an army enthusiastic but untrained, though containing a leaven of men who had seen hard fighting as volunteers in the Low Countries, in the French Huguenot wars, and in Ireland. What would have happened if the Spaniards had crippled the English fleet without getting crippled themselves? They would have convoyed to the English shores from the Netherlands an army of invasion consisting partly of Parma's veterans, partly of the large reinforcements which the Armada was carrying from Spain, under the command of the ablest soldier living. Queen Elizabeth in her Armada Thanksgiving robes, from a miniature executed in 1616

Book on eglands naval supremacy after defest of spanish armada