Few events have contributed more powerfully to England’s sense of identity as a sovereign Protestant
nation than the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. But for that, England might have become a dominion of Spain – at that time the most powerful nation on earth – and found herself drawn into Catholic Europe.

Subsequent history might have looked very different: Spanish, rather than English, might today rank as the world’s most widely spoken language, and North America might bear a much closer resemblance to South America linguistically and culturally. So the Armada’s defeat was
undoubtedly a decisive moment.

At the time, however, England’s fate appeared to hang in the balance. The Spanish Armada was a formidable enterprise, conceived by Philip II of Spain as a means of avenging both England’s execution of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587, and the regular attacks on Spanish
shipping by English privateers such as Francis Drake and John Hawkins.

To that end, on 21 July 1588, 130 ships carrying over 20,000 men set sail from Corunna, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia. The plan was for this fleet to join forces with the Duke of Parma’s army of 30,000 troops in the Spanish Netherlands and then to invade England.

The Spanish fleet sailed in the crescent formation that had worked so well against the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Having used this naval technique successfully against those they perceived as “Turkish infidels”, the Spanish now deployed it against an enemy
they regarded with scarcely less loathing, namely the English Protestant “heretics”.

The Armada presented a formidable sight as it sailed up the English Channel. One eye-witness, the antiquary John Camden, observed the ships, “built high like towers and castles, rallied into the form of a crescent whose horns were at least seven miles distant.”

“Afflavit Deus, et dissipati sunt”

The English fleet was commanded by the Lord Admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham, who initially decided to keep his distance, not daring to engage at close quarters with so powerful a force. Effingham later wrote that “we durst not adventure to put in amongst them, their fleet being so strong.”

The Armada reached the roads of Calais on 6 August. But then, on the night of 7 August, the English were able to float eight fireships among the Armada, the effect of which was greatly assisted by the direction of the wind. At this point, the English could use their superior fire power to engage at close quarters off Gravelines on 8 August.

This combination of the English tactics and the wind direction rendered the Spanish unable to land in the Low Countries, and the Duke of Medina Sidonia ordered his ships to disperse and sail to the north. With 112 ships remaining, the Armada sailed around the north of Scotland where many of them suffered shipwreck on the Scottish or Irish coasts. Eventually, only 60 ships and 3000 men made it back to Spain.

Recent research has tended to attribute England’s success to a fairly even balance between naval skill and the good fortune of the weather. At the time, the English acknowledged their favourable luck, but preferred to ascribe it to the providential intervention of what they called the “Protestant wind”. The medal that was struck to commemorate the Armada’s defeat bore the Latin words “Afflavit Deus, et dissipati sunt”—“God exhaled and they were scattered.”

For England’s Queen, Elizabeth I, this proved to be one of her finest hours. Dressed in white velvet and wearing a silver breastplate, she made a rousing speech to her troops assembled on the north side of the Thames estuary at Tilbury, ready to engage with Spanish troops if they had landed.

With characteristic political skill, Elizabeth began by stressing that “I have so behaved myself that under God I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects.” Then, in a famous passage, she continued: “I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a King, and of a King of England too – and take foul scorn that Parma or any other prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm.”

In recent years, historians have suggested that England’s land forces were probably rather stronger and better organised than used to be thought, and there was thus the possibility of major bloodshed had Parma’s army been able to land. The outcome of such land-based fighting remains uncertain, and it is possible that it might have resulted in a Spanish victory.

Had England become a Spanish dominion, the consequences would have been immense; England would have been drawn back into the Catholic fold, and by encircling France, Spanish hegemony within Europe would have been strengthened. Further afield, Spain might have gained control of much of North as well as South America, and Spanish might have become the premier world language.

In the end, of course, none of these things happened. But the defeat of the Armada in 1588 did not end the Spanish threat; Spain launched further amphibious expeditions against England in 1596 and 1597, and although both these fleets were dispersed by adverse winds en route, the Spanish did succeed in landing troops at Kinsale in the south of Ireland in 1601. Eventually, it was only the Treaty
of London with Spain – signed after Elizabeth I’s death by James I in August 1604 – that finally restored peace to Anglo-Spanish relations.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada was thus a decisive moment in British history, not because of what it changed, but because of what it prevented from happening. The country remained independent, sovereign, and Protestant – characteristics that have helped to define its identity ever
since – and this has had important implications for the subsequent history not only of Britain but of other parts of the world as well.

Whether attributable to good luck, the direction of the wind, or divine intervention, its consequences were certainly momentous.