A Strategy of Reaction: The Armadas of 1596 and 1597 and the Spanish Struggle for European Hegemony

English Historical Review

Volumn 118, Issue 478, 2003, Pages 855-882

  Tenace, Edward ^a  

^a LYON COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85055300492     PISSN: 00138266     EISSN: 14774534     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/118.478.855     Document Type: Article

References (152)

1. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York, 1989), pp. 45–52.
2. For his arguments see Geoffrey Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II (New Haven, 1998).
3. Quoted in Geoffrey Parker, ‘The Making of Strategy in Habsburg Spain: Philip II’s ‘‘bid for Mastery’’, 1556–1598’, in Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin Bernstein (ed.), The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War (Cambridge, 1994), p. 150.
4. R. B. Wernham, After the Armada: Elizabethan England and the Struggle for Western Europe 1588–1595 (Oxford, 1985) p. vii; see also The Return of the Armadas: The Last Years of the Elizabethan War against Spain, 1595–1603 (Oxford, 1994).
5. Quoted in Wernham, After the Armada, p. 143.
6. Very little has been written on the subject. For the best treatment see Winston Graham, The Spanish Armadas (New York, 1972), pp. 217–41.
7. A[rchivo] G[eneral de] S[imancas], Guerra Antigua. 435.138. 5 March 1595, Madrid, Philip II to Aguila.
8. B[ritish] L[ibrary]. Additional. 14007.443. ‘Copia de la instrucción que dio el rey al archiduque Alberto quando le embio la primera vez al govierno de la provincias de Flandes y condado de Borgoña.’
9. BL. Additional. 14007.443. ‘Copia de la Instrucción.’ Henry Hastings, Earl of Huntington, was the Lord President of the North and appears in English historiography to have had little desire to revive the Yorkist claim to the throne. Huntington was a descendant of the Duke of Clarence, the younger brother of Edward IV. Many saw him as a leading claimant. For his candidature to the throne see Mortimer Levine, The Early Elizabethan Succession Question, 1558–1568, (Stanford, 1966), p. 8. Although his claims were inferior to the Stuart and Suffolk lines, he had substantial support in the Parliament in 1563 because he was male and a Puritan. Moreover, he had the support of his brother-in-law, the Earl of Leicester. As it happened, the Spanish had little to worry about, since he would die in December 1595. This may account for the subsequent failure to carry out the Hull enterprise.
10. R. Doleman (Robert Parsons), A Conference about the Next Sucession to the Crowne of Ingland (1594), ed. D. M. Rogers, English Recusant Literature 1558–1640, v. 104. (Menston, 1974). The debate over who wrote it has consumed the energies of various historians. Many think that R. Doleman was Richard Verstegan, an English Catholic who had fled London in 1582; others attribute the work to Parsons, who certainly played a role in its reworking, and in the Spanish and Italian translations that went to Philip II and the Pope.
11. M. J. Rodríguez-Salgado. ‘The Anglo-Spanish War: the Final Episode of the War of the Roses?’, in England, Spain, and the Gran Armada 1585–1604, ed. Simon Adams and M. J. Rodríguez-Salgado (London, 1988), pp. 12–14. On his father’s side, Philip II descended from a daughter of John of Gaunt and his second wife, who married Henry III of Castile. But more importantly, on his maternal or Portuguese side, he could claim as an ancestor Philippa, the eldest daughter of John and his first wife Blanche of Lancaster.
12. Doleman, A Conference, 2:53; 2:101–2:102. This is one of the cleverest arguments of the book. In the section that denotes the cruelty of the House of York, Doleman lists Henry VIII as ‘the one who surpassed all the rest in cruelty towards his own kindred, for he weeded out all that ever he could find of the blood royal of York’.
13. Doleman, A Conference, 2:72–2:74, 2:96.
14. Rodríguez-Salgado, ‘The Anglo-Spanish War’, pp. 16–17.
15. BL. Additional. 14007.443. ‘Copia de la instrucción.’ Philip specifically alluded to his daughter’s superior rights based on her maternal descent from the ducal House of Brittany, and its connection to the Plantagenet dynasty. See Doleman, A Conference, 2:16–2:27, 2:150–153. Isabel could claim descent from Constance, the eldest daughter of William the Conqueror, and Beatrice, the daughter of Henry III of England. Both married into the House of Brittany. In addition, she could claim double descent from Henry II on both sides of her family from Eleanor, the daughter of Henry II, whose two daughters Blanche and Berenguera intermarried with the French and Castilian kings.
16. Quoted in Geoffrey Parker, The World is not Enough: The Imperial Vision of Philip II of Spain, The Twenty-Second Charles Edmondson Historical Lecture (Waco, 2001) p. 24. The metaphor comes from the Duke of Sessa, who was Spanish ambassador in Rome during the 1590s.
17. For the English raid, see Sir William Foster, The Voyages of Sir James Lancaster to Brazil and the East Indies, 1591–1603 (Cambridge, 1940), pp. xix–xxii. Lancaster led a small privateering force of three small ships to raid and plunder Pernambuco. For the raid on Cornwall see AGS. Guerra Antigua. 431.157. Relación de lo subcedido en el viaje que me ha hecho en las galeras de la guardia de Bretaña.
18. For a translation of Avellaneda’s instructions, see Kenneth Andrews, The Last Voyage of Drake and Hawkins (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 235–8, and Peter Pierson, Commander of the Armada: The Seventh Duke of Medina Sidonia (New Haven, 1989), p. 195.
19. Andrews, The Last Voyage, pp. 244–9; AGS. Estado. 177, unfoliated, 16 November 1596, Medina-Sidonia to Philip II.
20. For the Parsons plan, see Francis Edwards S. J. Robert Persons: the Biography of an Elizabethan Jesuit, 1546–1610 (St. Louis, 1988), p. 18. For the plan to attack Milford Haven see AGS. Estado. 433, unfoliated, 17 November 1595, Lisbon, Pedro López de Soto to Philip II.
21. See the letters of Alonso Gutíerrez to Philip II in 1595–1596 in AGS. Estado. 613.103–105.
22. W. A. R. Richardson, ‘An English Pilot’s Charts (1594): Spanish Intelligence Regarding the Coasts of England and Wales at the End of the XVIth Century’, Journal of Navigation, liii (2000), 313–27.
23. Colin Martin and Geoffrey Parker, The Spanish Armada (New York, 1988), pp. 114–15.
24. Hiram Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion: The Outbreak of the Nine Years’ War in Tudor Ireland (New York, 1993), p. 206. A major proponent of an Irish landing was the Spanish vice-admiral Diego Brochero. His plan is mentioned in Cesáreo Fernández Duro, Armada Española desde la Unión de los Reinos de Castilla y de Aragón (Madrid, 1897), III, p. 129.
25. AGS. Estado. K.1596.90. 10 June 1595, Quimperlé, Aguila to Philip II; AGS. Estado. K.1597.24, 18 August 1595, ‘Puntos de las Cartas de Don Juan del Aguila.’
26. For a copy of this letter see the Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts Preserved in the Library at Lambeth, 1515–1624. III, 141.
27. AGS. Estado. 176, unfoliated, 25 February 1596, Don Juan de Idiáquez to Andrés de Prada.
28. AGS. Estado. 833.104/105. ‘Relación del alférez Alonso Cobos.’ For the Irish response to these missions, see Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, pp. 208–213.
29. BL. Additional. 28377, unfoliated, 10 April 1596, Azeca, Moura to Poza.
30. BL. Additional. 28377, unfoliated, 17 April 1596, Azeca, Moura to Poza.
31. BL. Additional. 28378, unfoliated, 12 May 1596, Azeca, Poza to Moura; and the letter of 23 May 1596.
32. B[iblioteca de[ Z[abálburu]. Carpeta. 131.184/185, 12 March 1596, Consulta de Juan de Ibarra.
33. BL. Additional. 28377, unfoliated, 9 May 1596, Madrid, Poza to Moura; and BL. Add. 28377, unfoliated, 19 May 1596, Madrid, Poza to Moura; with reply of Moura (22 May).
34. BL. Additional. 28377, unfoliated, 6 June 1596, Madrid, Poza to Moura; with reply of Moura (8 June); and BL. Additional. 28377, unfoliated, 9 June 1596, Madrid, Poza to Moura; with reply of Moura (12 June); for the use of this sum to address the needs of the Armada in Lisbon see BL. Additional. 28377, unfoliated, 21 June 1596, Madrid, Poza to Moura; with reply of Moura (22 June).
35. BL. Additional. 28377, unfoliated, 18 June 1596, Madrid, Poza to Moura; with reply of Moura (20 June).
36. I[nstituto de] V[alencia de] D[on] J[uan]. Envío. 45.143. 23 February 1596, Vazialmadrid, La Junta Grande.
37. IVDJ. Envío. 45.145. 26 February 1596, Vazialmadrid, La Junta Grande; IVDJ. Envío. 45.154. 9 April 1596, Azeca, La Junta Grande.
38. For the best account of the Cadiz raid from the Spanish side see Pierson, Commander, pp. 193–213.
39. AGS. Estado. 176. unfoliated, 15 July 1596, Toledo, Philip II to the Count of Portalegre; AGS. Guerra Antigua. 463.736. 28 July 1596, Toledo, Philip II to Don Juan del Aguila.
40. AGS. Estado. 839.145. ‘Relación que trae el capitán Alonso Cobos de Irelanda embiado por orden de VM’; C[alendar of]S[tate]P[apers]: Spanish, IV, 637–641, October 1596, ‘Summary of the Statement of Captain Alonso Cobos’.
41. AGS. Estado. 176, unfoliated, ‘Algunos advertimientos para Irlanda si la armada de Su Magestad ubiesse de yr alla.’ AGS. Estado. 176, unfoliated, 14 September 1596, Philip II to the Adelantado.
42. CSP: Spanish. IV. 628–633. Father Robert Parsons to Martín de Idiáquez, ‘Principal points to facilitate the English enterprise’.
43. AGS. Estado. 176, unfoliated, ‘Algunos advertimientos para Irlanda si la armada de Su Magestad ubiesse de ir alla.’
44. CSP: Spanish. IV, 637–41. ‘Dispatches brought by Alonso Cobos to the Pardo, 26 November 1596’.
45. CSP: Spanish. IV, 623–624. 7 June 1596, Count of Portalegre to Juan de Idiáquez; this sentiment was repeated to Cobos on his second visit. See CSP: Spanish. IV, 641, 6 October 1596, O’Neill and O’Donnell to Captain Cobos.
46. AGS. Estado. 177, unfoliated, 27 June 1596, Madrid, Adelantado to Philip II.
47. Martin and Parker, The Spanish Armada, pp. 159–60.
48. AGS. Estado. 434.134. 15 September 1596, Lisbon, The Adelantado to Philip II.
49. For the figure of 470,000 ducats see IVDJ. Envío. 45.203. 2 September 1596, San Lorenzo, Consulta of the Junta Grande; and BL. Additional. 28377. unfoliated, 27 June 1596, Madrid, Poza to Moura; with reply of Moura (29 June); BL. Additional. 28377, unfoliated, 30 June 1596, Madrid, Poza to Moura; with reply of Moura (3 July).
50. BL. Additional. 28377, unfoliated, 14 July 1596, Madrid, Poza to Moura; and BL. Additional. 28377, unfoliated, 27 July 1596, Toledo, Moura to Poza. Pierson, Commander, p. 208, says that 200,000 ducats was needed to fund the army of Velasco.
51. A[ctas de las] C[ortes de] C[astilla] (Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, 1889–1890), XVI, pp. 415–17. See the speeches of the procuradores in ACC, XV, 45–6, 64–85, 272–273 (rejection of the package).
52. David Goodman, Spanish Naval Power 1589–1665: Reconstruction and Defeat (Cambridge, 1997), p. 152.
53. Goodman, Spanish Naval Power, pp. 152–3.
54. Goodman, Spanish Naval Power, p. 141.
55. AGS. Estado. 434.134. 15 September 1596, Lisbon, Adelantado to Philip II.
56. AGS. Estado. 434.136. 21 September 1596, Lisbon, Adelantado to Philip II.
57. AGS. Estado. 434.134. 15 September 1596, Lisbon, Adelantado to Philip II.
58. AGS. Estado. 176, unfoliated, 23 September 1596, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
59. AGS. Estado. 176, unfoliated, 24 September 1596, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
60. AGS. Estado. 434.140. unfoliated, 29 September 1596, Lisbon, Adelantado to Philip II.
61. AGS. Estado. 176. unfoliated, 1 October 1596, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
62. AGS. Estado. 176. unfoliated, 3 October 1596, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
63. AGS. Estado. 434.145. 12 October 1596, Lisbon, Adelantado to Philip II.
64. AGS. Estado. 434.146. 12 October 1596, Lisbon, Adelantado to Moura and Idiáquez.
65. AGS. Estado. 176, unfoliated, 13 October 1596, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
66. AGS. Estado. 2223.177. 2 November 1596, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Archduke.
67. AGS. Estado. 434, unfoliated, 18 October 1596, Lisbon, Adelantado to Philip II; AGS. Estado. 176, unfoliated, 24 October 1596, Lisbon, Adelantado to Philip II.
68. AGS. Estado. 434.159. 22 October 1596, Lisbon, the Adelantado to Moura and Idiáquez.
69. Graham, The Spanish Armadas, p. 222.
70. Cesáreo Fernández Duro, Armada Española, III, pp. 130–1.
71. AGS. Estado. 177, unfoliated, ‘Puntos del despacho del conde de Santa Gadea a 3 de Noviembre 1596;’ AGS. Estado. 176, unfoliated, 13 November 1596, Campillo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
72. AGS. Estado. 177, unfoliated, 31 December 1596, Ferrol, Adelantado to Moura and Idiáquez.
73. AGS. Estado. 177, unfoliated, undated, December 1596, Ferrol, Adelantado to Philip II.
74. AGS. Estado. 177, unfoliated, 23 November 1596, Ferrol, Adelantado to Philip II.
75. AGS. Estado. 177, unfoliated, 31 December 1596, Ferrol, Adelantado to Philip II.
76. Goodman, Spanish Naval Power, p. 188.
77. Luis Martín Guitian, Naves y Flotas de las Cuatro Villas de la Costa (Santander, 1942), p. 85.
78. Goodman, Spanish Naval Power, p. 207.
79. AGS. Estado. 177, unfoliated, undated, December 1596, Adelantado to Philip II.
80. AGS. Estado. 177, unfoliated, 19 December 1596, Ferrol, Adelantado to Philip II.
81. Goodman, Spanish Naval Power, pp. 55–7.
82. AGS. Estado. 177, unfoliated, 31 December 1596, Ferrol, Adelantado to Philip II.
83. John Francis Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 7–15.
84. Harry Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate (New Haven, 1998), pp. 357–8.
85. Essex quoted in Paul J. Hammer, ‘New Light on the Cadiz Expedition of 1596’, Historical Research, lxx (1997), 200, note 92.
86. AGS. Estado. K.1576.42. 6 October 1591, La Roche-Bernard, Don Juan del Aguila to Philip II. Spanish documents refer to Lannion as ‘Lunnion’ or ‘Union’; List and Analysis of State Papers Foreign Series: Elizabeth I: preserved in the Public Record Office (London, 1964), III, 288, 27 September 1591, Norris to Burghley.
87. AGS. Guerra Antigua. 327.185. 24 November 1591, Blavet, ‘Relación de lo que importan las mercaderías que se hallaron en los 7 navios olandeses que tomó de buena presa Don Diego Brochero con los 4 galeras en el paraje de Conquet, el 25 de Setiembre’; AGS. Guerra Antigua. 326.205. 10 October 1591, Blavet, Brochero to Philip II.
88. AGS. Guerra Antigua. 356.160. 19 September 1592, the Isle of Batz, Brochero to Philip II; AGS. Guerra Antigua. 356.161. 9 October 1592, Menaudet, Brochero to Philip II.
89. AGS. Guerra Antigua. 431.157. September 1595, ‘Relación de lo subcedido en el viaje que me he hecho en las galeras de la guardia de Bretaña.’
90. AGS. Estado. 177, unfoliated, Ferrol, December 1596, Adelantado to Philip II.
91. For the design of the caravel see Carla Rahn Phillips, Six Galleons for the King of Spain: Imperial Defense in the Early Seventeenth Century (Baltimore, 1988), pp. 36–8.
92. Phillips, Six Galleons, p. 67; Richard W. Unger, The Ship in the Medieval Economy 600–1600 (Montreal, 1980), p. 264.
93. Goodman, Spanish Naval Power, p. 57.
94. Ruth Pike, Penal Service in Early Modern Europe (Madison, 1983), p. 11.
95. Pike, Penal Service, p. 25.
96. AGS. Estado. K. 1592.74. 18 March 1592, Blavet, Brochero to Philip II.
97. Guilmartin, Gunpowder, p. 73.
98. Graham, The Spanish Armadas, pp. 269–71.
99. AGS. Estado. 178, unfoliated, 2 January 1597, Madrid, Philip II to the Adelantado.
100. For the bankruptcy of 1596, see Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (New York, 1976), I, pp. 510–15.
101. AGS. Estado. 2223.190. 31 December 1596, Philip II to the Archduke; Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659 (London, 1972), p. 247. n. 3; and Braudel, The Mediterranean, I, pp. 513–14.
102. AGS. Estado. 613.50. 14 March 1597, Brussels, Archduke to Philip II.
103. For the Treaty of Greenwich, see Wernham, The Return of the Armadas, pp. 78–81.
104. AGS. Estado. 2223.187. 10 December 1596, Madrid, Philip II to Albert.
105. AGS. Estado. 613.120. 3 April 1597, Brussels, Archduke to Philip II.
106. AGS. Estado. 2224–1.233. 14 March 1597, Madrid, Philip II to the Archduke; AGS. Estado. 2224–1.273. 26 March 1597, Madrid, Philip II to the Archduke.
107. AGS. Estado. 2224–1.238. 1 April 1597, Madrid, Philip II to the Archduke.
108. AGS. Estado. 2224–1.273. 26 March 1597, Madrid, Philip II to the Archduke.
109. AGS. Estado. 180, unfoliated, 6 May 1597, Ferrol, Adelantado to Moura and Idiáquez.
110. AGS. Estado. 180, unfoliated, 23 June 1597, San Lorenzo, ‘Proposición de la Jornada que se podrá hazer y diversos puntos de victuallas que hay para ella y del dinero y cosas que son menester.’
111. AGS. Estado. 180, unfoliated, 27 July 1597, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
112. AGS. Estado. 180, unfoliated, 2 August 1597, Ferrol, Adelantado to Philip II.
113. AGS. Estado. 178, unfoliated, 29 August 1597, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
114. AGS. Estado. 180, unfoliated, 2 September 1597, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
115. AGS. Estado. 180, unfoliated, 7 September 1597, Ferrol, Adelantado to Philip II.
116. Wernham, The Return of the Armadas, pp. 171–2.
117. AGS. Estado. 178, unfoliated, 14 September 1597, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
118. AGS. Estado. 178, unfoliated, 21 September 1597, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
119. AGS. Estado. 178, unfoliated, 22 September 1597, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
120. P[ublic] R[ecord] O[ffice]. S[tate] P[apers] 94/95/5. ‘Relación del Viaje del Adelantado;’ and CSP: Venetian. IX, 294–296, 25 October 1597, La Coruña, Father Sicilia, S. J., Confessor of the Adelantado, written to a friend while lying in site of La Coruña.
121. AGS. Estado. 180, unfoliated, 29 September 1597, La Coruña, Adelantado to Philip II; Fernández-Duro, Armada Española, III, pp. 166–7.
122. AGS. Estado. 178, unfoliated, 1 October 1597, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
123. AGS. Estado. 178, unfoliated, 19 October 1597, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
124. PRO. SP. 94/95/5. ‘Relación del viaje del Adelantado.’
125. Fernández-Duro, Armada Española, III, p. 166.
126. AGS. Guerra Antigua. 490.159. 31 October 1597, Blavet, Ledesma to Philip II.
127. PRO. SP. 94/95/5. ‘Relación del viaje del Adelantado.’
128. AGS. Estado. 180, unfoliated, 10 November 1597, La Coruña, Adelantado to Philip II.
129. Fernández-Duro, Armada Española, III, p. 167.
130. AGS. Estado. 180, unfoliated, 28 October 1597, Relación de carta de conde de Santa Gadea del galeon capitana sobre La Coruña.
131. AGS. Estado. 178, unfoliated, 4 November 1597, Campillo, Philip II to Padilla.
132. Wernham, The Return of the Armadas, pp. 171–91.
133. AGS. Estado. 180, unfoliated, 16 November 1597, La Coruña, Adelantado to Philip II. Large numbers of Dutch and English merchantmen routinely congregated there to trade supplies of cordage, masts, sails, and tar for cargoes of wine and wheat.
134. AGS. Estado. 178, unfoliated, 24 October 1597, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
135. Wernham, The Return of the Armadas, pp. 179–80.
136. AGS. Estado. 178, unfoliated, 4 November 1597, Campillo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
137. John L. Motley, History of the United Netherlands (New York, 1879), III, pp. 456–7; Wernham, The Return of the Armadas, p. 233.
138. Parker, The Army of Flanders, p. 291.
139. Graham, The Spanish Armadas, p. 242.
140. AGS. Estado. 614. 59/64. 24 October 1597, Arras, Archduke to Philip II. He had already decided as early as October to cede Calais, Ardres, and other strongholds, and drop Spanish claims to Brittany.
141. IVDJ. Envío. 114.21. 27 October 1599, Adelantado to Philip III.
142. Quoted in Goodman, Spanish Naval Power, p. 177.
143. Goodman, Spanish Naval Power, p. 180.
144. Parker, Philip II, p. 193.
145. AGS. Estado. 178, unfoliated, 29 August 1597, San Lorenzo, Philip II to the Adelantado.
146. Martin and Parker, The Spanish Armada, p. 132.
147. AGS. Guerra Antigua. 457.113. 7 September 1596, Santander, Don Fernando Giron to Philip II.
148. A point made very strongly by Goodman, Spanish Naval Power, pp. 50–51.
149. AGS. Estado. 434.161. 22 October 1596, Lisbon, Adelantado to Philip II.
150. PRO. SP 94/5/273. ‘Relación del Viaje del Adelantado.’
151. For this fiasco see: John Silke, Kinsale: The Spanish Intervention in Ireland at the End of the Elizabethan Wars (Liverpool, 1970).
152. Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II, p. 295.