Why the Spanish Armada Invaded Britain and Lost Essay

Spanish Armada Essay In this essay I am going to look at why the Spanish armada wanted to invade Britain and why they failed to do so, was it down to luck or were the British too smart for the Spanish. And was it all Englands glory? The Spanish wanted to invade England was mainly to turn England back into a catholic country, and to get Queen Elizabeth of the throne and to get a queen who was for the catholic monarch on the throne. However there are many other reasons: Firstly Philip II couldn?t accept that was not the king of England, as he was married to Queen Mary I, who was the Queen before Elizabeth. Secondly, when Philip proposed to Elizabeth she turned him down. Another reason is Elizabeth wouldn?t stop the privateers from†¦show more content†¦Also, before Philip sent the ships out Admiral Sanata Cruz, Spain?s best sailor, died and Philip replaced him with the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, who suffered from seasickness and did not really want to do the job. Was this a good idea? And should the Spanish of waited to find a new leader who wanted to do the job? During the sail up to England the Armada were told to keep a crescent formation no matter what happened this was the golden rule. The idea of this was so if an English ship was to come in from behind they could scoop it up like a net. The formation was that the stronger ships would go at the front so they could easily surround any English ships that threatened the centre. This was the plan, however it did not all go that way! Lord Howard, commander of the English fleet, used some of the lighter and faster English ships to ?pick-off? some of the stragglers (ones that were lagging behind) whilst they were sailing up the English channel. Unfortunately this did not really affect the crescent shape. Next came arguably one of the smartest moves in the battle, on 7th August Sir Francis Drake sent out a number of old ships that had been set on fire, the Spanish were petrified, they were not sure if the Ships had explosives on it, if they did so did the Spanish ships and the chances of them s etting on fire was very high. This came as a complete surprise to theShow MoreRelatedBattle of Normandy Essay1563 Words   |  7 PagesTheodore Roosevelt at the Trident Conference in Washington D.C. (Newark 144). After this meeting, planning to invade began immediately and May 1944 was originally selected as the time for the attack. United States forces were then transported to Britain in order to begin intensive training (Newark 144). A campaign was created for the sole purpose of confusing German intelligence. This was called Operation Bodyguard and included the construction of dummy installations and shipping in addition toRead MoreCauses of the English Civil War2258 Words   |  10 Pagesparliament and parliamentarians, the fact that the royals had less money available then their rivals, and finally, the King’s marriage to a French catholic princess, which caused a threat to the Church of England and Scottish churches. One major factor of why the civil war broke out was religion. Charles upset many people over the decisions and propositions he made. For example he had a clash with parliament over whether the Church of England should be reformed into the model that he wanted or whether, as