Invisible Armada
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Invisible Armada is the name given to the 1599 panic in England over the supposed approach of a
Spanish Armada The Spanish Armada (often known as Invincible Armada, or the Enterprise of England, ) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by Alonso de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat without previous naval ...
– an alarm greater than that experienced during the real crisis of 1588.
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...
records that afterwards people “forbore not from scoffs, saying that in the year ’88 Spain had sent an Invincible Armada against us and now she had sent an Invisible Armada”.


Background

Spanish naval strength had quickly recovered from the defeat of 1588, and two more Armadas had been sent against England in
1596 Events January–March * January 6 – Drake's Assault on Panama: Sir Francis Drake, General Thomas Baskerville and an English force of 15 ships land at the Atlantic Ocean port of Nombre de Dios in an attempt to capture the Isthmus o ...
and
1597 Events January–March * January 4 – Japan's Chancellor of the Realm, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, sends 26 European Christians, arrested on December 8, 1596, on a forced march from Kyoto to Nagasaki. * January 24 – Battle of Turnhout: M ...
, only to be dispelled by gales each time. After the
Peace of Vervins The Peace of Vervins or Treaty of Vervins was signed between the representatives of Henry IV of France and Philip II of Spain under the auspices of the papal legates of Clement VIII, on 2 May 1598 at the small town of Vervins in Picardy, northe ...
between France and Spain in 1598, the latter was free to concentrate her efforts against the English and the Dutch; and by the summer of 1599 reports of a new fleet gathering in Andalusia began to reach England.


Mobilisation and outcome

With experienced troops absent in Ireland and the Low Countries, an intense mobilisation of trained and untrained men took place over the summer, with up to 25,000 men concentrated around London. Blocking the Thames as a defence against another
Spanish Fury The Spanish Fury (or the Spanish Terror) was a number of violent sackings of cities (lootings) in the Low Countries or Benelux, mostly by Spanish Habsburg armies, that happened in the years 1572–1579 during the Dutch Revolt. In some cases, the ...
was also proposed, and it was not till September that the alarm and the mobilisation was allowed to wind down. While the Spanish fleet had indeed been a reality, it had in fact been aimed at Dutch naval forces, not England; and, caught by winds, it ended up in the Azores.M Reading ''The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus'' (2009) p. 229


See also

* '' A Larum for London'' *
Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) The Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) was an intermittent conflict between the Habsburg Spain, Habsburg Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of England that was never formally declared. It began with England's military expedition in 1585 to what was ...
*
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (; 10 November 1565 – 25 February 1601) was an English nobleman and a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. Politically ambitious, he was placed under house arrest following a poor campaign in Ireland during th ...
*
Simon Forman Simon Forman (31 December 1552 – 5 or 12 September 1611) was an Elizabethan astrologer, occultist and herbalist active in London during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and James I of England. His reputation, however, was severely tarnishe ...


References


Further reading

* {{cite book , last= Wernham, first= R.B , title= The Return of the Armadas: The Last Years of the Elizabethan Wars Against Spain 1595–1603, volume= , year= 1994, publisher= Clarendon Press , location= Oxford, isbn= 978-0198204435


External links


The Invisible Armada and Trouble with Neutrals
1599 in Europe 1599 in England Invasions of England Spanish Navy
Spanish Armada The Spanish Armada (often known as Invincible Armada, or the Enterprise of England, ) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by Alonso de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat without previous naval ...
Maritime history of England