3rd Spanish Armada Spain, the English signed the Triple Alliance with the Dutch republic and France. England had sent an armada the next year under the Earl of Essex and Charles Howard to Cadiz which was captured and sacked. An angered Philip soon after took into consideration the defence of the peninsula. In a wave of revenge after the defeat at Cadiz, Philip II sent out orders for a large armada to do the same to England by way of taking the French port of Brest. Just after they set off however the fleet was obliterated in autumn storms off Cape Finisterre causing
Spanish Empire and Protestant England. When the Spanish Armada sailed in 1588, England faced the most serious threat of invasion since the Norman Conquest of 1066. Its defeat did not end the threat. England sent out its own armada in 1589, but this endured heavy losses. In 1591, Spain reasserted its naval superiority at the Battle of Flores, when an attempt to capture its treasure fleet was thwarted. Spain had invested itself in the religious warfare in France after Henry II's death. In 1589, Henry III, the last of the Valois lineage, died at the walls of Paris. His successor, Henry IV