Essay About Spanish Armada And Spains Catholic King Philip Ii

Spanish Armada
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The Spanish Armada is the term conventionally applied
to a massive fleet dispatched against England by
Spains Catholic King Philip II in 1588, leading to an
early and important confrontation in the nearly
20-year Anglo-Spanish War of 1585-1604 (the “Twenty
Years War”). The Armada had been sent following a
rift in Anglo-Spanish relations resulting from
commercial competition, religious differences, and
disputes over English aid to Protestant Dutch rebels,
though its proximate cause was the English execution
of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots in 1587. The
flotillas mission was to serve as an escort for an
invading professional army led by Alessandro Farnese,
the Duke of Parma, one of the kings generals who had
been combating a Protestant uprising in the
Spanish-ruled Netherlands. The Spanish fleet was
repulsed by English defensive ships, however, and
suffered major losses in a September Atlantic storm
while rounding the coast of Scotland en route to
Spain. The Spaniards were nonetheless able to regroup
quickly, and defeated a retaliatory English invasion
force dispatched to Spain and Portugal in 1589. The
Spanish navy was retooled in the 1590s and effectively
solidified Spanish control over the waves, protecting
treasure fleets from privateering while vanquishing
English opponents on the high seas and on the coasts
of Spanish America, and Spain continued as Europes
dominant power into the 1600s. While the Spanish