Fourth Spanish Armada
The Fourth Spanish Armada, also known as the Last Armada, was a military expedition sent to Ireland that took place between August 1601 and March 1602 towards the end of Anglo-Spanish war. The armada – the fourth and smallest of its type, was sent on orders from the Spanish king Philip III to southwestern Ireland to assist the Irish rebels led by Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, who were fighting to rid Ireland of Queen Elizabeth I of England's rule. Don Juan del Águila and Don Diego Brochero commanded the expedition that consisted of 36 ships and 4,500 soldiers, and a significant amount of arms and ammunition. The Spanish were also planning to establish a base at Cork from which to strike at England.
Bad weather separated the ships and some had to turn back but the remaining 1,800 men under Águila disembarked at Kinsale on 22 September. Further reinforcements the following month brought the total to 3,500. Admiral Pedro de Zubiaur landed another 700 men in early December at Castlehaven, and sent part of that force commanded by Alonso de Ocampo to Baltimore occupying the castles in the area, Dunboy, Dunasead and Dúnalong. The English led by Charles Blount, the Earl of Mountjoy and George Carew, responded in force and were able to besiege Kinsale on 2 October. A small fleet led by Richard Leveson were able to blockade the Spanish at Kinsale by late November. The Irish under Tyrone and clan chief Hugh Roe O'Donnell made their way to Kinsale in a 300-mile march and were joined with 200 Spanish under Alonso de Ocampo.
Leveson went out to Castlehaven and defeated Zubiaur's small fleet, leaving the Spanish stranded there, and unable to help Águila. On 24 December, the Irish arrived at Kinsale, and a pitched battle during a storm was fought. Águila was however unable to intervene, and the English defeated Tyrone's forces. The English resumed the siege and Águila was forced to seek terms, and surrendered Kinsale in January 1602. The other garrisons at Dunboy, Castlehaven, Dunasead and Dúnalong also surrendered as part of the terms. This resulted in bitter recriminations in Spain, especially for Águila. This was to be the last Spanish armada sent, and the last major campaign against the British Isles during the war. The defeat thus weakened Spanish resolve in the war against England which subsequently led to peace negotiations that terminated with the Treaty of London in 1604.
Background
In 1595, Gaelic lord Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone joined his confederates in open rebellion against the English crown in Ireland. A conflict had been brewing as a result of the advance of the English state in Ireland, from control over the Pale to ruling the whole island. In resisting this advance, Tyrone managed to rally other Irish septs notably Florence MacCarthy who were dissatisfied with the English government, and some Catholics such as Owen McEgan who opposed the spread of Protestantism in Ireland. Queen Elizabeth I had sent in crown forces to restore order, but were struggling to take back control. Many of the clans also sought help from Catholic Spain.Ireland had featured in Spanish plans to invade England in 1588 when the Spanish Armada was forced to make landfall there, following a perilous route home through heavy storms after its defeat in the English Channel. The concept of using Ireland as 'the King of Spain's bridge into England' had been proposed during the war. A prophecy predicted that 'he that England will win, through Ireland must come in'. Irish expatriates, Owen McEgan and James Archer and Spanish clericals such as Franciscan Mateo de Oviedo had convinced King Philip II of Spain that he had a realistic chance of ousting the English from their first colony. Oviedo had made several trips there and had forged close contacts with the insurgent leaders.
Philip eventually offered aid to the Irish rebels in the expectation that tying the English down in Ireland might draw English resources away from the Low Countries. English troops were fighting with their Protestant ally the Dutch Estates who had been engaged in a long rebellion against Spanish rule. Philip thus sent the Second Spanish Armada aimed at supporting the Irish rebels, but this was a costly failure - the fleet was driven off course by storms off Cape Finisterre in October 1596 with many ships sunk. Undeterred, the ill and dying Philip sent the Third Spanish Armada the following year, but storms and ill planning drove many ships back to Spain, with the English fleet picking off the remnants.
Spanish plan
After the Peace of Vervins which ended the war between France and Spain in 1598, the latter was free to concentrate her efforts against the English and the Dutch. The Spanish did however lose its strategic coastal bastions along the French coast, and with it any potential for a quick strike against England. Spain looked for an ideal replacement, with one such being Ireland that could also be used as a coastal base for privateers, like the Dunkirkers, to disrupt English and Dutch shipping.In August 1598, Irish rebels had defeated the English at the Yellow Ford in Armagh, which buoyed Spanish overtures to the Irish. After Philip II's death that year the new King Philip III continued to provide direct support to the Irish rebels, but in a less demanding manner. The Spanish court was now dominated by the Duke of Lerma whose general policy was one of disengagement. There were peace talks at the Boulogne conference in 1600, but this failed, and Spain was looking for a decisive knockout blow against both Holland and England. The following year, Spanish forces mounted a huge effort to take the Anglo-Dutch held port of Ostend on the Flanders coast, and an expedition to Ireland was organised.
Despite the failure of the two armadas and bankruptcy in 1596, Spain built up its fleet so that by the end of 1600 it had assembled 35 galleons, 70 other ships and 25,000 men. Philip ordered Don Juan del Águila and Don Diego Brochero to go to Ireland with 6,000 men in an armada with a significant amount of arms and ammunition. Águila was a hardened veteran that had made his reputation under the Duke of Parma, had served in the Brittany campaign and had been part of successful expedition to Cornwall in 1595 under Captain Carlos de Amésquita. He had been imprisoned for not paying taxes to the King, but proved his innocence and in reparation, he was given the command of the expedition. The aim was to take Cork, a key southern port of the island and hold it for a larger Spanish landing later on.
At Belém, 4,432 troops were mustered into 45 companies and grouped into two tercios. The number of fighting men was far short of the 6,000 men that Tyrone had requested, and Philip had intended to send.
English plans
By the summer of 1599 reports of a new fleet gathering in Andalusia began to reach England. A Spanish fleet attempting to enter the Channel against the Dutch failed due to high winds but the sighting and reports caused panic in London and intense mobilisation of trained and untrained men went underway. Furthermore, a Dutch fleet returning from a failed attack on A Coruña also entered the channel, which put more fuel to rumours of another Spanish attempt. It was only in September that this alarm wound down, but England still sent out fleets of various sizes to counter any potential Spanish attempts.By early 1601, the war in Ireland had changed - the new English commander Charles Blount along with George Carew, the Lord President of Munster had suppressed parts of the rebellion by using a scorched Earth policy in Tyrone's lands. One of the Spanish contacts in Ireland Florence McCarthy was taken prisoner and sent to the Tower. Tyrone and O'Donnell were forced to conduct a guerrilla style warfare.
By April 1601, the English Privy Council imagined that the chances of a Spanish intervention were slight. By June however, intelligence confirmed that between 4,000 and 5,000 men had mustered at Lisbon and ready for Ireland. Vigorous preparations were made by the Privy Council to meet this expected invasion. By the beginning of September the promise of 2,000 men had arrived in Ireland and more were being levied.
Execution
The Spanish fleet was supposed to set sail in late August 1601, but only got a head wind on September 2. Finally setting out from Lisbon, they sailed towards Ireland - the delay meant that conditions on Spanish ships were poor and many soldiers and sailors were on half rations. Nevertheless, the fleet made good progress, passing the Groyne and safely negotiating the Bay of Biscay's notoriously dangerous waters.As the armada approached island of Ouessant, Admiral Brochero raised the question of the destination, which was still under debate. A summit council was held on board the San Andres - Brochero warned of a coming storm and became frustrated with Águila. In his report which he made for his own defence, he wrote, Thirty leagues off the Irish coast, I told Águila to identify his chosen port, because I was merely in charge of the fleet. There were indecisions and intense arguments by the commanders about where to land, partly to fool any English spies. Águila preferred either Donegal Bay or some east-coast port facing England. Brochero, who had been against the armada being sent, vetoed the East for ease of reinforcements. The priests including Oviedo, wanted to land and take Munster, one of the English Pales. The south was more convenient for Brochero's ships. Eventually a consensus was unsatisfactorily reached - Brochero issued written orders to each naval captain to follow him to Kinsale and named the port of Castlehaven, southeast of Skibbereen and some 70 km west of Kinsale, as a secondary objective.
Storms
Soon after the agreement, a strong gale dispersed the fleet. This soon turned into a storm, which scattered the individual ships across the ocean surface. Águila and Brochero, in the San Andres, managed to battle the winds northeast towards the Cork-Kinsale region, accompanied by the bulk of the fleet and carrying some 1,700 men.Meanwhile, Vice-Admiral Zubiaur became hopelessly lost with his galleon, San Felipe and three other ships. They were carrying nearly seven hundred of the best troops, as well as most of the stores and munitions. Zubiaur made several attempts to join his comrades, but all failed due to poor winds, and a final attempt to end up at Donegal failed. Some were swept out into the Atlantic - a large transport carrying ammunition and supplies was later captured by an English privateer after being in considerable distress.
After the storm had dissipated, Brochero managed to reach Southern Ireland in relatively good weather on 18 September followed by the greater part of the vessels. He attempted to get into Cork harbour, but the wind changed making an attempt up the river impossible. By this time Zubiaur had been forced to sail back towards Spain, arriving at the port of Ferrol. News of his return angered the Spanish council and later the King, and he was ordered to put to sale as soon as he could, but again any head wind was lacking.