BLOG 6...: The Spanish Armada Part II

The last question that was answer from the reading was, what was the objective of the Spanish Armada? Well, English pirates had plundered Spanish ships for years and England’s Queen Elizabeth actively supported the Dutch rebellion against the Spanish rule. In addition, Catholic Philip felt duty-bond to help English Catholics rid their country of the growing Protestant “heresy.” To the end, the Armada carried some 180 priests and religious adversaries. Even as the crew of the Armada assembled, each man had to confess his sin to a priest and receive Communion. The religious mood of Spain and of its king was personified by the eminent Spanish Jesuit Pedro de Ribadeneyra, who said: “God our Lord, whose cause and most holy faith we are defending, will go before us- and with such a captain we have nothing to fear.” as for the English, they hoped that a decisive victory would pace the way for Protestant ideal to sweep across Europe. The Spanish king’s invasion plan seemed straightforward. He instructed the Armada to sail up the English Channel and pick up the Duke of Parma and his 30,000 veteran soldiers stationed in Flanders which was part of the Spanish Netherlands. The combined forces would then cross the Channel, land on the Essex coast, and march on London. Philip assumed that English Catholics would abandon their Protestant queen and swell the ranks of his army.
Philip’s scheme, however, had serious flaws. While he presumed to have the backing of divine providence, he overlooked two main obstacles- the strength of the English navy and the difficulty of picking up the Duke of Parma’s troops without a suitable deepwater port where they could meet.