#english_history 

King Philip of Spain decided to conquer England in **1587**, hoping that enough Catolics in England would be williping to help him (e.g Mary Queen of Scots).

He built a great fleet of ships, an "Armada", to move his across the English Channel from the Netherlands. But in 1587 Francis Drake attacked and destroyed part of this fleet in **Cadiz harbour**.

Philip then built another fleet, the largest fleet that had ever gone to sea. But most of the ships were designed to carry soldiers, and the few fighting ships were not as good as English ones, which were longer and narrower, so that they were faster and their could also shoot further than the Spanish ones.

## Defeat of the Spanish Armada
The Armada was defeated in 1588 more by bad weather than by English guns. Some Spanish ships were sunk, but most were blown northwards by the wind, many being wrecked on the rocky coasts of Scotland and Ireland.
Peace, however, was only made with Spain once Elizabeth I was dead.