Alternate history: what if the Spanish Armada had succeeded?

At least, that was what the Spanish hoped would happen. Instead, the events of 1588 are remembered for England’s historic victory over the Spanish Armada.

A lot went wrong for the Spanish: delays to preparations, a destructive raid on their port of Cadiz, a disrupted voyage, inexperienced leadership, poor strategy, a faster English fleet, and – as if a sign of divine intervention – the weather.

Yet had it gone differently and the landing been a success, says author and historian Robert Hutchinson, “we might be speaking Spanish today”.

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How could the Spanish Armada have won?

What if the Armada had been ready to sail earlier than 28 May 1588? The Spanish would likely have found the English less prepared, having not set up the beacon warning system on the coasts or built up their own fleet at Plymouth.

Perhaps more importantly, the Armada would still be under the command of Spain’s greatest admiral, the Marquess de Santa Cruz, who allegedly never lost in battle. His death in February 1588 forced the selection of a new commander: the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an able administrator, but no seaman. As Hutchinson claims: “The more experienced Santa Cruz might have been more aggressive during the running fight up the Channel.”

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If Medina Sidonia had not stuck so rigidly to Philip’s orders not to attack first unless absolutely necessary – a “fatal flaw in Spanish strategy” according to Hutchinson – he could have caught the English fleet when anchored and vulnerable. Such a strike could have neutralised the naval commander, Lord High Admiral Charles Howard, as well as his second in command – Spanish enemy number one, Francis Drake.

“Bottling up the English ships at Plymouth would have provided a clear run for the Spanish and demoralised the English,” says Hutchinson. That would have meant that English ships could not have taken the crucial position west of the Armada, from which they bombarded the enemy all the way to Calais.

If the Duke of Parma’s battle-hardened troops successfully landed near Margate on the Kent coast, it is likely they would have been in the poorly defended streets of London within a week

This in turn would have meant no fireship attack to break up the Armada’s crescent formation and less chance of heavy winds forcing the Spanish into retreat north. If Medina Sidonia took advantage, a landing of Parma’s army could have been possible. “Faced with invasion”, says Hutchinson,“the future of Elizabeth I and her Protestant England would have looked very black indeed.”

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“If Parma’s battle-hardened troops successfully landed near Margate on the Kent coast, it is likely they would have been in the poorly defended streets of London within a week,” he adds. Parma would have been in a position to force concessions from Elizabeth I concerning Catholic worship in England and the surrender of English influence in the Spanish Netherlands. Meanwhile, Philip’s war chest would grow bigger from collecting payments that had been promised by Pope Sixtus V in the event of a successful landing.

What would have happened to Elizabeth I?

The Pope’s support for Philip’s ‘Enterprise of England’ depended on the restoration of Catholicism. “The Spanish boasted that Elizabeth would be paraded in a cage in the streets of Rome,” says Hutchinson.

Whether she was captured quickly during the siege of London or later after making a last stand at a stronghold like Windsor Castle, England would certainly have lost its Protestant regime. This would have an instant effect on European politics as Protestant rebels in the Spanish Netherlands would stop receiving English support and so likely face defeat, all but ending hope for Dutch independence.

The Spanish believed Catholics around England would rise up in support of the invasion, heartened by reports from their spies of friendly populations in counties like Lancashire, Westmorland, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Hampshire; they even brought gifts of jewel-encrusted swords for Catholic nobles. Some English Catholics would conceivably support the Spanish and there would be little chance of loyal Protestants holding out. “English land forces were dangerously short of personal weapons, armour and artillery and would have proved a poor match against the Spanish invaders,” says Hutchinson.

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Total conquest of England was by no means assured. The Spanish were on foreign soil and facing at least a guerrilla campaign from Protestant forces, which could have spilled over into civil war. That would come, moreover, after the problematic task of getting Parma’s army over the Channel in the first place, says Hutchinson.

“The invasion forces, with horses and artillery, would have been towed in flat-bottomed barges in a protected ‘corridor’ to safeguard them from attack. The sea would have to have been exceptionally calm, the weather kind and the tides benevolent.” If all had gone right for the Spanish, though, then it may not have been only England and Spain to have had a severely altered history.

England, no longer a Protestant nation and bearing the humiliation of invasion, could have become part of the Spanish Empire. Colonisation of the New World would have looked very different with Spain as the dominant power and England not featuring at all. Hutchinson goes so far as to say: “If England had been defeated by the Armada, its naval prowess would have been erased from history. There may not have been a British Empire.”

Dr Robert Hutchinson is a Tudor historian and archaeologist, whose critically-acclaimed books include The Spanish Armada (W&N, 2013). He was speaking to freelance writer Jonny Wilkes

This content first appeared in the March 2020 issue of BBC History Revealed

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