English Armada English Armada The English Armada, also known as the Counter Armada or the Drake-Norris Expedition, was a fleet of warships sent to Spain by Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1589, during the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) and the Eighty Years' War. It was led by Sir Francis Drake as admiral and Sir John Norreys as general, and failed to drive home the advantage England had won upon the destruction of the Spanish Armada in the previous year. The Spanish victory marked a revival of Philip II's naval power through the next decade. Queen Elizabeth I's intentions were to capitalise
An Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland An Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland An Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland concerning the present wars, made from the execution of his holiness' sentence, by the highe and mightie King Catholike of Spaine (1588) was written by William Cardinal Allen in an attempt to raise Elizabeth I's Catholic subjects against her while the Spanish Armada mounted their invasion of England. The publication was a scathing attack on Elizabeth, her ancestry and her legitimacy. Allen wrote that Elizabeth was "known for an incestuous bastard, begotten and born in sin of an