The Probert Encyclopaedia of Warfare

BATTLE OF GRAVELINES

The Battle of Gravelines was fought on Monday the 29th of July, 1588 during the English- Spanish Naval War. The Spanish Armada had entered the English Channel on Saturday the 20th of July 1588. The Spaniards saw no signs of their enemy. But the next morning, when they were off Plymouth, sixty English ships attacked them in a manner which they little expected. Instead of closing with the enemy, in the traditional style, the English passed by the Spanish fleet, each ship firing, as it passed, a terrific broadside. The Spaniards could not reply, for, with their inadequate guns, they were out of range. Nor could they close with the enemy, for the English sailed away. All that week the entire Armada moved slowly up the Channel; there were two minor fights off the Dorset coast and the Isle of Wight. On Saturday the 27th of July, a week after they had entered the Channel, the Spaniards dropped anchor in Calais Roads. Here Medina Sidonia sent a message to Parma, and perhaps intended waiting for him. But he was not allowed to do so.

Drake, taking advantage of a favourable wind, sent fire-ships among the Spanish fleet. Only a few ships were actually set on fire, but the rest cut their cables and made for the open sea. The Spaniards were driven from Calais. On the 29th of July, the wind again favoured the English, for it blew strongly towards the Flemish coast, from which the Spaniards struggled to get away. As they did so, broadside after broadside from the English guns battered their ships and cut down their soldiers. It was a terrible slaughter; and the Spaniards, as at Plymouth, could make no effective reply from their own feeble guns. Only a lucky change in the direction of the wind saved the Spaniards from being driven upon the sandbanks of Flanders. Though they lost only two or three ships at Gravelines, the whole fleet was badly damaged - how badly was shown in the sequel. For Medina Sidonia, recognising defeat, determined to sail round Great Britain and make for Ireland - a friendly Catholic country, as he thought. But his ships battered by the English guns at Gravelines, were in no condition to make so long a voyage. All leaked badly, a great storm arose, and there were no friendly harbours in England or Scotland. Soon the majority of the ships became wrecks. Many of them were driven on to the inhospitable shores of Scotland and Ireland; in Ireland hundreds of Spanish soldiers were murdered by the natives, who turned out to be little better than savages. Of the 130 ships which had made up the Armada, only fifty reached home.
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