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 Armada soldiers, and bore 1,500 brass guns and 1,000 iron guns. The full body of the fleet took two days to leave port. It included twenty eight purpose-built warships, of which twenty were galleons, four galleys and four (Neapolitan) galleasses. The remainder of the heavy vessels were mostly armed carracks and hulks together with thirty-four light ships. In the Spanish Netherlands, 30,000 soldiers awaited the arrival of the Armada, the plan being to use the cover of the warships to convey the army on barges to a place near London. All told, 55,000 men were to have been mustered, a huge