Maritime history only when his ship was too disabled to offer any resistance. The Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidona in 1588. The Spanish Armada was sent by King Philip II of Spain, who had been king consort of England until the death of his wife Mary I of England thirty years earlier. The purpose of the expedition was to escort the Duke of Parma's army of tercios from the Spanish Netherlands across the North Sea for a landing in south-east England. Once the army had suppressed English support
Spanish Armada winds, and they were scattered". There were also more lighthearted medals struck, such as the one with the play on the words of Julius Caesar: "Venit, Vidit, Fugit" ("he came, he saw, he fled"). The victory was acclaimed by the English as their greatest since Agincourt. The memory of the victory over the Armada was evoked during both the Napoleonic Wars and the Second World War, when Britain again faced a substantial danger of foreign invasion. The Armada Memorial in Plymouth was constructed in 1888 to celebrate the tercentenary of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Knerr (1989) has reviewed