Spanish Armada 1588: Fire Ships at Calais and the Storms That Won

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Philip II ran his empire from his desk in the Escorial, and his plan to invade England showed it. The Marquis of Santa Cruz wanted 90,000 men and 550 ships, at a cost of 1.5 billion maravedís, roughly the crown's entire annual revenue. Philip settled for a smaller Armada of about 130 ships that would sail up the Channel and ferry the Duke of Parma's army from the Spanish Netherlands, a coast with no deep water port where flat-bottomed boats would have to meet the galleons offshore. When Santa Cruz died, command passed to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who wrote begging to be excused because he got seasick and knew nothing of naval war. The fleet was sighted off Cornwall on July 29, 1588.

Bound by Philip's orders, Medina Sidonia sailed past an English fleet pinned in Plymouth by wind and tide. At Calais the Armada anchored to wait for Parma, who was not ready, and eight English fire ships sent it scattering into the night after crews cut their anchor cables. At Gravelines, English guns on four-wheeled carriages fired again and again. Then storms drove the fleet around Scotland and Ireland, where up to 44 ships were wrecked, and fewer than 10,000 of roughly 30,000 men got home.

• Pope Sixtus V pledged to fund the invasion, but only once Spanish troops actually landed in England.
• Francis Drake put out the lantern he was meant to lead with and captured the crippled Rosario, along with 50,000 gold ducats.
• Water casks made of unseasoned wood leaked or went foul on the voyage home.
• Survivors of El Gran Grifón, wrecked on Fair Isle, are said to have influenced the island's knitting patterns.
• The English counter Armada of 1589 lost between 11,000 and 15,000 men, and three later Spanish armadas were scattered by storms.