Rennuke’s interpretation of the Fall of the Spanish Empire

Thanks: To everyone who commented on the original post and helped correct my mistakes.

Apologies: To anyone who read the original post for: bad grammar , horrendous English, typos, and incorrect history

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The loss of the Spanish armada was not what killed the Spanish empire I believe that it was God and nothing less.
As I understand it happened this way.
Ahem… when King Philip (the number escapes me at the moment) came to the throne of Spain he commanded an exploding economy that was enriched by a seemingly endless avalanche of wealth from enormous and mostly unchallenged American colonies, also large portions of Europe answered to him, the single largest religion in the world was right in his pocket, on land his armies were considered literally physically invincible. The people of Spain were happy, her coffers seemingly endless and she was the undisputed mistress of the seas. All the other nations of Europe were kowtowing and her only rival by any stretch of the imagination was England, and in the eyes of Europe it was like a emperies and a peasant girl. But this peasant was one of rare beauty founded in passionate independents of the early Britons tempered by Roman discipline bolstered up and sustained with Saxon law and vigor and finely crowned with Norman nobility and ambition. But in of herself England had no hope of toppling the” Queen of the World” Then comes the part where the legends get made. In a little out of the way Spanish province most people had never even heard of named the Netherlands. Now the Dutch were fine with their Spanish rulers but they had a problem. Lots of them were protestants so after Philip was crowned the inquisition told him that the Catholic Church would really appreciate it if he got rid of them and he said a….why not, turning the inquisition on them. The Dutch were horrified as they watched the atrocities poured on their neighbors just because the Pope didn’t like them. They had thought that there king would protect them but he was the one that gave the order. They tried appealing, enduring, flight, and finely when all else failed they took up arms to defend themselves. During this time they had been crying out to God to deliver them and He answered, he gave them a deliverer in the most unlikely place. Agenst all odds their own Prince decided to back them. You may have heard of him he is called the Prince of Orange. And under his leadership the protestants and the Catholics of Holland joined forces and beat off the inquisition. Philip was furious how dare they deify his royal order! So he ordered an army to finish the job. In fact he ordered the extermination of the Dutch as a people, thus fallowed one of the bloodiest wars in history. With the Spanish massacring thousands of Dutch and the Dutch fighting a haphazard war of desperately defending their cites attacking foraging parties and finely distorting the dike network and returning their land to the sea. On a side note this was one of the strangest wars I’ve ever heard of. From the besiegers being besieged to fleets freezing solid and being besieged by an army to entire battles with both sides on ice skates. It was the grave of the Spanish armies reputation Philip pored men and recourses in to it. But to no avail. Corruption helped some but I think that nothing short of the mighty hand of God could have saved them from their immanent doom. But by this time some other problems were forming. England was watching this and as quietly as possible helping the Dutch. Also a surprising number of English speaking pirates had appeared in the Caribbean, and that avalanche of Gold from America had caused some of its own problems the price of gold went through the floor, and just kept going. So the amount of gold the government had to spend to buy any given thing went up and up and up but thanks to those pirates the amount the government was getting went down. Then the English ,I mean the pirates started to win. The Spanish started calling the English sailors sea dogs  in fact it got so bad that entire ships surrendered to single boat loads of English. But this was strictly confined to the Caribbean. It was during this time that Francis Drake and his Golden Hide looted an attire Spanish fleet without a shot being fired. Also aided by England and other sympathetic nations of Europe the Dutch began to have some successes and even started a small fleet called the Zeeland pirates. Now Philip was no fool he saw the way the wind set. He was also discovering that the protestants that he was knocking off comprised most of his middle class artisans some of which were fleeing to England and helping their goring economy that was already being boosted by the Gold from captured treasure fleets. And he knew that if Spain was to win England was going to haft to go. So he needed a bigger fleet than the one that he had but instead of having one built he subsidized civilian ship building, on condition that they were built meeting military standards then when enough ship where built he would confiscated them. This temporarily boosted his flagging financial system and gave him a large fleet for haft of what it should have cost him. Then after he squashed the fledgling British navy and landed his armies he could then return the ships to their former owners and he would end up with the England bagging him for mercy. A nice merchant marine. And without England the Netherlands would fall and those annoying pirates would go home and the gold would flow. It seemed to good to be true,  It was. Now before Spain went to war they wanted to get rid of Drake so Philip sent an ambassador to not so gently ask queen Elizabeth to execute the pirate and to everyone’s surprise she agreed after all he was a pirate. England was shocked how could she!?! And then she decided to witness it herself!!??!! But on the day a pointed as he knelt she took the executioners sword and used it to make him a knight. The condemned pirate left as Sir. Francis Drake and commander of the Britons Plymouth fleet. Philip’s response was simple, he declared war. He also formed the Spanish Armada and stated gathering an army that would crush Briton (after all to worked so well last time). England could see the Spanish navy and army was preparing for an invasion and started making preparations but political pressure agenst Drake clogged the naval arrangements. Infract English admirals paid out of their pockets just to keep the sailors from staving. Drake could see the storm gathering and bagged the Queen for more funds but again politicians blocked anything much from happing. In desperation Drake tried to buy more time for England by attacking the Spanish naval economy  in one valiant attempt he fought his way to and destroyed the Armada’s water barrel supply this does not see so important but keep in mind that a watertight  wooden barrel takes between 6 and 9 months to make and the Armada needed thousands . If it had been almost anywhere else in the world this would have delayed them for months but this was the English channel so the Armada sailed anyway and just stop off along the cost for fresh water to refill their leaky water barrels and then off to England  they went. About this time the politicians that were giving such a hard time realized that if the Spanish were successful they wouldn’t be there to annoy Sir. Drake any more so in less time than it takes to say it… The navy had all the funding they needed ,well almost, but it was almost  too late to do anything  with it. With roughly 130 ships the Armada was on them. The first few engagements  were light but they  showed Drake that his small English ships could not face the Spanish giants toe to toe so he tried some complex maneuvers to maximize his fleets  maneuverability , fire ships, and a few other things. he took a few loses and gave a few but there was no real advantage from either side. But then the” weather” came to his rescue. Severely damaging the Armada. The Spanish feet gathered and decided to sail home for repairs. But the English Plymouth fleet was between them and Spain. So when the front door is locked go in the back way. They tried to sail all the way around Scotland and come back between Wales and Ireland. The bad weather fallowed them and ships were wrecked all along the coast only about 50% of the ships and less than that of the sailors made it home.  Spain was the laughing stock of Europe if a little rag tag bunch of Dutch merchants or a few little haft starved English ships could beat them why can’t we? The Spanish armed forces were in shambles, the economy was folding  ,and the Pope had found  a new favorite, Francs. The Spanish said  that the devil did it, and the English attributed it to God.

 Whatever  the cause. The after effects of the collapse  were enormous  The Dutch won their independents and became a power in their own rite. The power vacuum created on the main land was filled by the French, and on the sea the rising star of England began to shine as never before, both would expand their holdings  in the new world. Spain never completely recovered, new armies were trained fleets were rebuilt , reputation was restored  and the economy recovered , to some extent. But now she was a force to be reckoned with, not force itself,  she was a sea power, not the sea power. She would again be a star in the European sky but never again would she blot out every other star with her own brilliants. And the other two stars England and France? They are going to go to war and in the blood of their wars a new star would be born. And that star would shine like no star before it. But Europe was changed forever. The emperies had fallen and her crown placed on the head of the peasant girl only she was no longer  a peasant she had become a Queen.

                                                                                                                                                   Rennuke  Athrawes