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
3rd Spanish Armada Sir Ferdinand Gorges the Governor of the Fort at Plymouth put a 500-man guard on the town and a pinnace was sent out to feedback sightings of the Spanish fleet. Gorges was fed reports of the landings in Cornwall and Wales and sightings of Spanish ships and immediately sent the information to parliament and the Queen in London in the quickest possible time. An excited panic set in motion across much of England and Wales. Troops were being recalled from Amiens in France (it had recently been captured by the Anglo-French force the previous month) and for the mobilization of