Topic > Context and factors that contributed to the defeat of the Spanish Army in the 16th century

England defeated the Spanish Army towards the end of the 16th century. Spain was the world's greatest international ruler. It has ruled, colonized, or attempted to dominate much of the world. Spanish power is at its peak right now. Also in this period, King Philip II committed himself to defeating the heretics present in England and converting them to the Church of Rome. He also had other reasons for conquering England. He disliked Queen Elizabeth I and vowed to kill her. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To complete his conquest of England, King Philip planned a partial attack. He would send his Invincible Armada of 125 ships into the English Channel where he would link up with the Duke of Parma in the Spanish Netherlands at Calais. The Army would then take the Duke of Parma's soldiers across the Strait of Dover and then the troops would march on London, capture the Queen and proceed to conquer the rest of the country. The Spanish Armada, under the command of the Duke of Medina Sedonia, set sail from Portugal at the end of May 1588 bound for the British Isles. He reached the south-west coast of England on 19 July and was then challenged by the English fleet commanded by Lord Howard and Francis Drake. The English ships, avoiding close combat, remained in the English Channel as long as possible. The English ships harassed and harassed doing much damage until the Armada anchored at Calais. Here the Duke of Parma did not appear and as a result the English saw an opportunity to attack the Spanish fleet. On 28 July 1688 the English used fire ships to disperse the Spanish ships. On July 29, at the Battle of Gravelines, an 8-hour fight, ended with many Spanish ships damaged or sunk. The Spanish commander, the Duke of Medina Sedonia, found himself in danger of complete defeat and made the clever decision to forget about the invasion and return to Spain via northern Scotland and Ireland. For three days the English fleet carefully surveyed the Spanish in the North Sea, then returned to England when they ran out of ammunition. The Spanish failed disastrously to round the Scottish coast. Many ships of the Armada were destroyed due to storms. The surviving Spanish ships barely made it back to Spain, completely defeated and ashamed. The defeat of the Spanish Armada marked the turning point in the dominance of the Spanish throughout the world. Now the main international ruler was England with a lot of power. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Since there were no newspapers at that time, the news was reported by newspapers published weeks or months after the event. One of the earliest was in a 24-page newspaper printed in 1588 in Cologne by Michael Entzinger who lived in Germany. The front page contained a picture of the Spanish Armada sailing off the coast of England. The newspaper is in German and the front page says A true account of the Spanish Armada or Armaments translated from the original Spanish edition into High German, including the story of how on 29 and 30 May the Armada under the command of the Duke of Medina Sedonia, departed from Portugal and how then, at great risk, arrived in England and fought in a strait on the 8th, 9th and 10th of August and also how the Armada met the English again in the open sea after that, on the 22nd of the same month of August. This was a nice title and was only the introduction to a first comprehensive account of the defeat of the Spanish. This newspaper represents one of the.