The events leading up to the Spanish Armada?

The armada was the brainchild of Spain’s King Philip II.

His reasons

• The English navy was exercising too much control over the sea routes to the New World, where many of Spain’s colonies were situated.
• Then there was the religious rivalry between Catholic Spain and Protestant England, as England was not a nice place to be a Catholic, which meant that he that the Pope would fund his plans to help the English Catholics.
• He was frustrated by the help and support the English were giving those fighting his army in the Low Countries.

This meant that from Philip’s point of view, it was a no brainer, he had to invade England, solving all his problems in one stroke.

His cunning plan

He had a cunning plan, send an armada of fighting ships up the English Channel to Dunkirk where the Duke of Palma, the Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, would assemble an army of 30,000 soldiers.

The ships would ferry the troops across the Channel and, once in England, march on London and capture the capital, forcing Queen Elizabeth to surrender.

It took 2 years to prepare his plan.

King Philip spent over two years preparing the fleet, the reason was that he didn’t only need galleons and warships, he also needed troop and cargo ships, which he had to build, to transport all the men and equipment. Totally he built an armada of more than 130 ships, this was as well as several small ships that would act as scouts and carry messages between the bigger ones.

Spain was the richest and most powerful nation on earth at that time, or so they thought, which meant that Philip knew it would be simple and easy.

But he was wrong!

Our show The Spanish Armada – The Invasion of England tells the story of what happened through both dialogue, which never has more than five lines in any speech, and twelve original songs, that you children will walk round the school singing.  

To hear two of the songs and read two pages of script please go to https://www.history-portal.com/index.php/product/the-spanish-armada/

Let’s make History fun.

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