page_title: Spanish Armada
section_title: Return to Spain
hierarchical_section_title: Spanish Armada / Execution / Return to Spain
caption_attribution_description: English: A closeup of the plaque on The Spanish Barn in Torquay, England. Taken on 25 August 2005 using an HP Photosmart R707 at 5.1 megapixels. See also: The Spanish Barn, Torquay.jpg
context_page_description: The Spanish Armada was a Habsburg Spanish fleet of 130 ships that sailed from Corunna in late May 1588, under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, with the purpose of escorting an army from Flanders to invade England. Medina Sidonia was an aristocrat without naval command experience but was made commander by King Philip II. The aim was to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I and her establishment of Protestantism in England, to stop English interference in the Spanish Netherlands and to stop the harm caused by English and Dutch privateering ships that interfered with Spanish interests in the Americas.
  English ships sailed from Plymouth to attack the Armada and were faster and more manoeuvrable than the larger Spanish galleons, enabling them to fire on the Armada without loss as it sailed east off the south coast of England. The Armada could have anchored in The Solent between the Isle of Wight and the English mainland and occupied the Isle of Wight, but Medina Sidonia was under orders from King Philip II to meet up with the Duke of Parma's forces in the Netherlands so England could be invaded by Parma's soldiers and other soldiers carried in ships of the Armada.
context_section_description: On the day after the battle of Gravelines, the disorganised and unmanoeuvrable Spanish fleet was at risk of running on to the sands of Zeeland due to the westerly component in the wind. Luckily for the Armada, the wind then changed to the south, enabling the fleet to sail north. The English ships under Howard pursued to prevent any landing on English soil, although by this time his ships were almost out of shot. On 2 August, Howard called a halt to the pursuit at about the latitude of the Firth of Forth off Scotland. The only option left to the Spanish ships was to return to Spain by sailing round the north of Scotland and home via the Atlantic or the Irish sea. The Spanish ships were beginning to show wear from the long voyage and some were kept together by having their damaged hulls strengthened with cables. Supplies of food and water ran short. The intention would have been to keep to the west of the coast of Scotland and Ireland in the relative safety of the open sea. There being no way of accurately measuring longitude, the Spanish were not aware that the Gulf Stream was carrying them north and east as they tried to move west and they eventually turned south much closer to the coast than they thought. Off Scotland and Ireland, the fleet ran into a series of powerful westerly winds which drove many of the damaged ships further toward the lee shore. Because so many anchors had been abandoned during the escape from the English fireships off Calais, many of the ships were incapable of securing shelter as the fleet reached the coast of Ireland and were driven onto the rocks and local inhabitants looted the ships. The late 16th century and especially 1588 was marked by unusually strong North Atlantic storms, perhaps associated with a high accumulation of polar ice off the coast of Greenland, a characteristic phenomenon of the "Little Ice Age". More ships and sailors were lost to cold and stormy weather than in direct combat.
  About 5,000 men died by drowning, starvation and slaughter by local inhabitants after their ships were driven ashore on the west coast of Scotland and Ireland. Reports of the passage of the remnants of the Spanish Armada around Ireland abound with onerous accounts of hardships and survival.
  In the end, 67 ships and fewer than 10,000 men survived. Many of the men were near death from disease, as the conditions were very cramped and most of the ships ran out of food and water. Some were captured and imprisoned by the English in what was later called the "Spanish Barn" in Torquay on the south coast of England. More Armada survivors later died in Spain or on hospital ships in Spanish harbours from diseases contracted during the voyage. It was reported that when Philip II learned of the result of the expedition, he declared, "I sent the Armada against men, not God's winds and waves".
caption: A plaque in the Spanish Barn
exif: {"Image Make": "Hewlett-Packard", "Image Model": "HP PhotoSmart R707 (V01.00)+", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2005:08:25 12:00:46", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 128, 255, 128, 255]", "Image ExifOffset": "372", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "49/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "3088", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "3104", "EXIF OECF": "[]", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:08:25 12:00:46", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:08:25 12:00:46", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1783/256", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1203/256", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "673/128", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "14/5", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "1689/500", "EXIF MeteringMode": "2960", "EXIF LightSource": "2976", "EXIF Flash": "2992", "EXIF FocalLength": "24", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "720", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "664", "EXIF FlashEnergy": "88", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "127/1953125", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "127/1953125", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "56528", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "100", "EXIF SensingMethod": "3184", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "144", "EXIF CustomRendered": "3232", "EXIF ExposureMode": "3248", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "3264", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "3296", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "3312", "EXIF GainControl": "3328", "EXIF Contrast": "3344", "EXIF Saturation": "3360", "EXIF Sharpness": "3376", "EXIF DeviceSettingDescription": "[1, 0, 15, 0, 48, 48, 48, 48, 65, 48, 48, 48, 48, 55, 65, 48, 48, 48, 48, 56, ... ]", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3824"}