Count Lamoral Egmont was a Dutch soldier. He was born in 1522 and died in 1568. Born of an illustrious family of Holland, he entered military service, accompanied Charles V in his African expeditions, and distinguished himself under Philip II in the battles of St Quentin in 1557 and Gravelines in 1558. Philip having gone to Spain, Lamoral Egmont soon became involved in the political and religious disputes which arose between the Netherlands and their Spanish rulers. He tried to adjust the difficulties between both parties, and in 1565 went to Spain to arrange matters with Philip. He was well received, sent back with honour, but quite deceived as to the king's real intentions. In 1567 the Duke of Alva was sent with an army to the Netherlands to reduce the insurgents. One of his first measures was to seize Count Lamoral Egmont and CountHorn. After a trial before a tribunal instituted by Alva himself they were executed at Brussels on the 5th of June, 1568. A well-known drama of Goethe's is founded on the story of Lamoral Egmont. Research Lamoral Egmont
Martin Happertzoon Tromp was a Dutch sailor. He was born in 1597 at Briel and died in 1653. He entered the navy in 1607 and rose to admiral in 1637. In 1639 he defeated a Spanish fleet off Gravelines and he served in the campaigns of 1640 to 1641. In 1652 he was defeated by Blake off Dover, but later defeated Blake at the battle of Dungeness. In 1643 he encountered the English off Portland, North Foreland and at Scheveningen where he was killed in action. Research Martin Tromp
Count Philip van Horn (Philip van Hoorne) was a Flemish soldier and statesman. He was born in 1518 and died in 1568. He was the son of Joseph de Montmorency-Nivelle, and of Anne of Egmont, and stepson of John, count van Horn, who constituted him and his brother his heirs on the condition of assuming his name. Philip gradually rose to be governor of Gueldres and Zutphen, admiral of the fleet, and councillor of state. He fought at St Quentin in 1557, and at Gravelines in 1558, and in 1559 accompanied Philip to Spain. On his return he joined the Prince of Orange and Egmont in resistance to Philip. On the arrival of Alva at Brussels he was arrested, in September 1567, on a charge of high treason, and he and Egmont were beheaded in June 1568. Research Philip van Horn
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 entireArmada 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 MedinaSidonia 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 MedinaSidonia, 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 stormarose, 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. Research Battle of Gravelines
The English-Spanish Naval War was fought from 1585 to 1604 between England and Spain, and was due in no small part to religion, Elizabeth of England being protestant, Philip II of Spain catholic. Philip had delayed attacking England for thirty years because he was not anxious to rush into a conflict, of which the result might be doubtful, and which would in any case involve considerable expense. However, the English sailors had, for over twenty years, been conducting piratical raids on Spanish ships and Spanish ports, the climax of which was Sir Francis Drake's destructive raid on the West Indies in 1585. Elizabeth's interference in the Netherlands had become intolerable. And the Pope was urging Philip to embark on a war which he regarded as a crusade to destroy a heretic government. The execution of Mary Queen of Scots in February 1587 removed whatever doubts remained in Philip's mind. He had always questioned the wisdom of placing Mary on the English throne, for Mary was French, not Spanish, by upbringing and sympathy. Besides this, her son, James VI of Scotland, who was presumably the heir to both kingdoms, was a Protestant. But Mary had, not long before her death, disinherited James, and passed on her claims to the English throne to Philip himself. After that, Philip hesitated no longer. He gave orders for a great Armada to be prepared in all the ports of Spain.
It was while these preparations were being made that Drake made the Raid on Cadiz. The result of this raid justified the boast of Fenner (Drake's friend) that twelve of Her Majesty's ships were a match for all the galleys in the king's service. But all his countrymen did not share Fenner's confidence. To many, perhaps to most, the danger seemed appalling. England was without allies, a small country, with no regular army, standing alone against the might of the greatest empire in the world, an empire on which, it was boasted, 'the sun never set'. Philip was the master of the New World, and of a considerable portion of the Old. By annexing Portugal in 1580 he had absorbed the
dominions of his only serious rival in America and the Indies. The famous Spanish infantry were thought to be unbeatable. And it was these very soldiers, commanded by one of the greatest generals in history - the Duke of Parina - who were waiting to invadeEngland. Philip' s plan was to conquer England from the Netherlands, where Parma's army, 30,000 strong, was mustered. Parma built flat-bottomed boats at Antwerp in sufficient numbers to convey his army to England. When the Dutch blockaded the mouth of the Scheldt he caused a canal to be dug, so that the boats could be moved to Dunkirk. But, as Parma well knew, to cross to England was impossible without a protecting fleet. It was for this purpose that the Armada was provided. It was thought that a large Spanish fleet could easily dispose of a smaller number of English vessels, and that then the way would be clear for Parma to invadeEngland. But this plan of invasion was never carried into effect, for the Spanish fleet, though slightly superior in numbers, was hopelessly inferior in every other respect.
The English fleet was smaller than the Armada, but comprised of real ships of war, all heavily armed with guns. The Armada entered the English Channel on Saturday the 20th of July 1588 and on Monday the 29th of July, was fought the Battle of Gravelines. The English naval war with Spain continued until after Elizabeth's death, when peace was made by James I in 1604. Elizabeth knew that war is very costly. But, in the first flush of the victory over the Armada, the war party, led by Walsingham and Drake, was in the ascendant. Early in 1589, therefore, the offensive was taken against Spain with the Expedition to Portugal. In 1591 Admiral Lord Thomas Howard was sent to the Azores, with Sir Richard Grenville as second in command. Arriving there, the Admiral learnt that the Spaniards had mustered a large battle fleet to escort their treasure-ships home. He wisely decided to retreat, as he was completely outnumbered. Sir Richard Grenville, however, in the Revenge, remained - to wage his immortal fight with one ship against the whole Spanish fleet. So formidable were the English guns that the Revenge put up a fight lasting a day and a night before she surrendered. Then a stormarose which sank the Revenge together with over a hundred of the enemy- warships and treasure-ships. The years 1595 to 1597 saw a vigorous revival of the prosecution of the Spanish war. Elizabeth, alarmed at the news that Philip was preparing another Armada, sent once more for her old sailors. Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake undertook a raid on the Spanish possessions in the West Indies in 1595, but it was a failure. As he once more sailed his ship on Nombre de Dios Bay, Drake found that the Spaniards were considerably stronger than in the great days of his youth. Hawkins died at sea, and soon afterwards Drake himself died of a sickness which had already carried off large numbers of his men. He was buried at sea, in the waters that washed the Spanish Main, where his name had been a word of
ror for a generation.
The next year another fleet sailed from England under LordHoward of Effingham, Lord Thomas Howard, and Sir Waiter Raleigh. Essex commanded the army of 8000 men which it carried. This fleet destroyed the shipping in Cadiz harbour; Essex and his men landed and took the town, which they gave to the flames. Philip swore vengeance, and, against the advice of his captains, dispatched another Armada to England in the late autumn of 1596. It was, however, destroyed by a storm and never even sighted the English coast. The next year Essex and Raleigh went off on the 'Islands Voyage' - to the Azores. They missed the Spanish treasure-fleet by a few hours, quarrelled bitterly, and returned home empty- handed to face a wrathful queen. By way of reply Philip, who was now a dying man, ordered a third Armada to sail, but it suffered the same fate as its predecessor. The Islands Voyage was the last effort of the war as far as Elizabeth was concerned, though English privateers continued to attack Spanish merchant ships. The damage they did was considerable, and the main Spanish fleet from America could only cross the Atlantic with a large convoy of warships. Research English-Spanish Naval War
A fireship is a small vessel filled with inflammable material, lighted and set adrift among an enemy' s ships in order to set fire to them. Fireships were used during ancient times and successfully employed against the Duke of Parma by the defenders of Antwerp in 1585 and by the British against the Spanish Armada off Gravelines in 1588. Fireships were rendered obsolete by the introduction of metal warships. Research Fireship
HMS Gravelines was a British Battle Class destroyer of 2315 tons displacement designed for operation in the Pacific Ocean during the Second World War and launched in 1944. HMS Gravelines was powered by three Admiralty 3-drum type boilers providing a top speed of 34 knots and carried a crew of 250 in peace time and 337 during the Second World War. She was armed with two pairs of 4.5 inch dual-purpose guns mounted forward; twelve 40 mm anti-aircraft guns; two depth charge howitzers; ten 21-inch torpedo tubes. Research Gravelines
The San Martin was a Portuguese-built Spanish galleon of 1000 tons displacement built around 1570 that served as the flagship of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The San Martin had three masts, square-rigged with a lateen-rigged mizzen and carried a crew of 350 plus soldiers and was armed with 48 guns. She was involved in the Battle of Gravelines in 1588 and despite taking over 200 shots and losing over 180 men, two divers plugged holes at the waterline and she returned safely to Spain. Research San Martin
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Abbreviations
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