2nd Spanish Armada 1596. Spain and England had been at war for nearly twelve years with neither side gaining the upper hand. The result of the intervention of Philip II in the religious war in France in support of the Catholic League, meant that Spanish forces had established coastal garrisons along the French and Flemish coast by the late 1580s. These bases had a huge strategic value because they allowed England to be threatened by the Spanish fleet and troops. England on the other hand had also intervened in France, but in support of King Henry IV of France, as a result of
2nd Spanish Armada the Treaty of Greenwich in 1591. The Spanish had captured Calais in 1596 which meant that a strike against England was potentially more achievable. After desperate French demands to keep her from signing peace with Spain, the English signed the Triple Alliance with the Dutch republic and France. England had sent an armada under Robert Devereux and Charles Howard to Cadiz, which was captured, sacked and held for two weeks in the summer of 1596. Philip soon after took into consideration the defence of the peninsula but most of all sought revenge even if it meant selling everything he had.