"La Armada Invencible" (Spanish) or "the Invincible Fleet" (English), with a certain ironic tone, by the English in the 16th century, was a fleet assembled by King Philip II of Spain in 1588 to invade England.
The armada consisted of 130 well-armed ships, manned by 8,000 sailors, carrying 18,000 soldiers and was destined to embark another army of 30,000 infantry. In command, the Duke of Medina-Sidônia was on a Portuguese galleon, the São Martinho.
Filipe II was then also the King of Portugal due to the Iberian Dynasty Union (from 1580 to 1640) so some of the ships used were part of the Portuguese fleet. One of the main battle squadrons was called "Esquadra Portugal", having some of the best war galleons in the world. Most of the pilots, sailors and soldiers of the Invincible Armada were Portuguese, despite being commanded by Spaniards.
The order of departure was for April 25th, but the fleet left Lisbon (Portugal) on May 28th, 1588, with 130 ships, 8 thousand sailors and 18 thousand soldiers. The plan was to destroy the English fleet guarding the English Channel and at the same time land near London the army of the Duke of Parma, with 30,000 soldiers, which was waiting in the Spanish Netherlands.
On the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, a troubled voyage that suffered the September storms, typical in the region, resulted in most of the shipwrecks, especially of merchant ships improvised as warships. Of the approximately 130 ships that made up the squadron, five were effectively sunk in combat at Gravelinas, several suffered serious damage and lost battle condition and another fifty were lost on the return trip in storms, mainly merchant ships. While circling the British archipelago, the fleet neither attacked nor was attacked and kept the British in permanent tension, despite the great initial euphoria with the outcome of the combat in the channel. With the return to the Iberian Peninsula, mooring most of the first-class galleons on the Cantabrian coast for repairs, the extent of the setback for the Spanish crown became evident. The financial and political damage was severe. At the time, Philip II would have exclaimed: "I didn't send my ships to fight the elements!" Any new plan of attack on England seemed impossible and the strength of her navy more threatening. This humiliating defeat would also have major repercussions for Portugal.
The episode on the channel was decisive for the Dutch and especially the English to understand the strategic advantage that a professional war navy could mean. At the time of combat, a large part of the assembled fleet was made up of privateer ships and did not belong to the regular military navy. It was only from then on that the great impulse was given that made England the greatest naval power in the world, but this only became clear more than 50 years later. Since the 15th century and until then, this title had always been granted to Portugal and Spain. The defeat was also decisive for the abandonment, by the Spanish Empire, of any project to invest in a naval arms race against the English and Dutch.
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