Anglo-Spanish War (1625–1630)

For other conflicts, seeAnglo-Spanish Wars (disambiguation).

Anglo-Spanish War (1625–1630)
Part of theEighty Years' War
The Defence of Cádiz against the EnglishbyFrancisco de Zurbarán
Date 1625–1630 Location Atlantic Ocean,English Channel,Low Countries,Spain and theSpanish Main Result Treaty of Madrid Status quo ante bellum Increased division between theEnglish MonarchyandParliament
Belligerents
Spain	England Dutch Republic Scotland
Commanders and leaders
Philip IV Count-Duke of Olivares Ambrosio Spinola Fadrique de Toledo Antonio de Oquendo Duke of Medina Sidonia	Charles I Duke of Buckingham Edward Cecil Robert Devereux Horace Vere Maurice of Nassau William of Nassau

The 1625 to 1630Anglo-Spanish Warwas fought byEngland,in alliance with theDutch Republic,andSpain.A related conflict of theEighty Years' Warbetween the Dutch and Spanish, most of the fighting took place at sea, and ended with theTreaty of Madridrestablishing a partialstatus quo ante.

However, it's widely considered to have been a Spanish victory because it proved to be a costly fiasco for England, whose merchants lost the profitable Flemish cloth markets to heavy custom duties.The unsuccessful and unpopular outcome of the conflictfuelled the disputes between theEnglish MonarchyandParliament,to the point that the first charge of grievance was made against kingCharles Iin theGrand Remonstranceten years later.

Background

European policy in this period was dominated by the outbreak of theThirty Years Warwithin theHoly Roman Empirein 1618, andrenewalof theEighty Years' WarbetweenSpainand theDutch Republicin 1622. Despite popular enthusiasm for theProtestantDutch, and concern at the success of the CatholicCounter-Reformation,Englishinvolvement had been limited to financial support, and provision of volunteers. This was largely due to differences between the English Crown andParliamentover the nature of the problem, and how to resolve it.

The Thirty Years War began when the ProtestantFrederick V of the Palatinateaccepted theCrown of Bohemia,replacingFerdinand II,Catholic heir to theHoly Roman Emperor.In 1619, Frederick was ousted from Bohemia, while Spanish troops occupied his hereditary lands of theElectoral Palatinate,in preparation for renewing their war with the Dutch. Since Frederick was the son-in-law ofJames VI and I,king ofScotlandandEngland(part of sentence lost?)

War

The 1624 Parliament voted three subsidies and three fifteenths, around £300,000 for the prosecution of the war, with the conditions that it be spent on a naval war. James, ever the pacifist, refused to declare war, and in fact never did. His successor,Charles I,was the one to declare war in 1625.

Siege of Breda

Main article:Siege of Breda (1624)

In August 1624, the Spanish generalDon Ambrosio Spinolaordered his forces to lay siege to the Dutch city ofBreda.The city was heavily fortified and defended by a garrison of 7,000 Dutch soldiers. Spinola rapidly gathered his defences and drove off a Dutch relief army underMaurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange,who was attempting to cut off his supplies. In February 1625, another relief force, consisting of 7,000 English soldiers under SirHorace VereandErnst von Mansfeld,was also defeated. Finally,Justin of Nassausurrendered Breda to the Spaniards in June 1625 after aneleven-month siege.

Cádiz Expedition

TheDuke of BuckinghambyPeter Paul Rubens

By October 1625, approximately 100 ships and a total of 15,000 seamen and soldiers were readied for theCádiz Expedition.An alliance with the Dutch had also been forged, and the new allies agreed to dispatch an additional 15 warships commanded by William of Nassau, to assist in guarding theEnglish Channelin the absence of the English main fleet.Sir Edward Cecil,a battle-hardened veteran of combat in service with the Dutch, was appointed commander of the expedition by theDuke of Buckingham,a choice that proved to be ill-considered. Cecil was a good soldier, but he had little knowledge of nautical matters.

The planned expedition involved several elements: overtaking Spanish treasure ships returning from the Americas loaded with valuables; and assaulting Spanish towns, with the intention of assailing the Spanish economy by weakening the Spanish supply chain and consequently relieving the military pressure on theElectorate of the Palatinate.

The entire expedition descended into farce. The English forces wasted time in capturing an old fort of little importance, giving Cádiz the time to fully mobilise behind its defences and allowing merchant ships in the bay to make good their escape. The city's modernised defences, a vast improvement on those of Tudor times, proved effective. Meanwhile, a body of English forces landed further down the coast to march on the city also became side-tracked because of poor discipline. Eventually, Sir Edward Cecil, the commander of the English forces, faced with dwindling supplies, decided there was no alternative but to return to England, having captured few goods and having had no impact on Spain. And thus in December, a battered fleet returned home.

Charles I, to protect his own dignity and Buckingham, who had failed to ensure the invasion fleet was well supplied, made no effort to inquire as to the cause of the failure of theCádiz Expedition.Charles turned a blind eye to the debacle, instead preoccupying himself with the plight of the French Huguenots of La Rochelle. But the House of Commons proved less forgiving. The parliament of 1626 initiated the process of impeachment against the Duke of Buckingham, prompting Charles I to choose to dissolve parliament rather than risk a successful impeachment. The failure of the attack had severe consequences for England. In addition to the economic and human loss, it damaged the reputation of theEnglish Crown,creating a serious political and financial crisis in the country.

1627–1628

The Duke of Buckingham then negotiated with the French regent,Cardinal Richelieu,for English ships to aid Richelieu in his fight against the FrenchHuguenots,in exchange for French aid against the Spanish occupying theElectorate of the Palatinate,but theParliament of Englandwas disgusted and horrified at the thought of English Protestants fighting French Protestants. The plan only fuelled their fears of crypto-Catholicismat court. Buckingham himself, believing that the failure of his enterprise was the result of treachery by Richelieu, formulated an alliance among Cardinal Richelieu's many enemies, a policy that included support for the very Huguenots whom he had recently attacked. The English force, commanded by the Duke of Buckingham, was defeated by the French Royal troops at theSiege of Saint-Martin-de-Réand at theSiege of La Rochelle.In this campaign the English lost more than 4,000 men of a force of 7,000 men. On 23 August, while organising a second campaign inPortsmouth,England in 1628, Buckingham was stabbed to death at theGreyhound PubbyJohn Felton,an army officer who had been wounded at the Siege of La Rochelle.

Dutch Revolt of 1626–1629

The siege of 's-Hertogenbosch in 1629, byPieter Snayers

After the surrender of Breda, the States gave orders for recruiting their army which consisted of 61,670 infantry and 5,853 cavalry; nearly 20,000 of whom were English and Scottish. Of these four were English regiments that King Charles had raised and sent to Holland. A part of this force was sent to the Spanish held city ofOldenzaalwhichwas capturedafter a ten-day bombardment in the summer of 1626. The following year the English were under the command ofEdward Ceciland contributed to thesiege of the city of Groenlo.A Spanish relief force led byHendrik van den Berghfailed to get through and as a result the city surrendered to the Dutch commanderFrederick Henry, Prince of Orange.In 1629, the important Spanish stronghold of 's-Hertogenboschwas besiegedand captured by Frederick Henry's army of 28,000 men which included a number of English and Scottish regiments all commanded by Horace Vere.

St. Kitts and Nevis

In 1629, a Spanishnaval expedition,commanded by AdmiralDon Fadrique de Toledo,was sent to deal with the recently established Anglo-French colonies on the Caribbean islands ofSaint Kitts and Nevis.The territories were regarded by the Spanish Empire as its own since the islands were discovered by the Spanish in 1498 and the English and French colonies had grown sufficiently to be considered a threat to theSpanish West Indies.In theBattle of St. Kitts,the heavily armed settlements on both islands were destroyed and the Spanish seized the islands.

Aftermath

England altered its involvement in theThirty Years Warby negotiating a peacetreaty with Francein 1629. Thereafter expeditions were undertaken by theDuke of HamiltonandEarl of Cravento theHoly Roman Empirein support of the thousands of Scottish and English mercenaries already serving under theKing of Swedenin that conflict. Hamilton's levy was raised despite the end of the Anglo-Spanish War. In addition English troops would constitute a large part of the States army but in their pay after 1630. In the following years under Frederick Henry and Horace Vere the cities ofMaastrichtandRheinbergwere recaptured.Breda was recapturedin 1637, with English troops led by ColonelCharles Morgan. With the advent of theWar of the Mantuan SuccessionSpain sought peace with England in 1629 and so arranged a suspension of arms and an exchange of ambassadors.On 15 November theTreaty of Madridwas signed which ended the war and thus restored the 'Status quo'

This war is often considered as a Spanish victory,it had proven a costly fiasco for England, whose merchants lost the profitable Flemish cloth markets to heavy custom duties after the war.The unsuccessful and unpopular outcome of the conflictfuelled the disputes between the Monarchy and Parliament, to the point that the first charge of grievance was made against Charles I in theGrand Remonstranceten years after the conflict had ended.

Sources

• Adams, Simon (1983).Spain or the Netherlands? The Dilemmas of Early Stuart Foreign Policy inBefore the English Civil War.Springer.ISBN978-0-333-30899-8.

Further reading

• Ashley, Maurice (1987).Charles I and Oliver Cromwell: A Study in Contrasts and Comparisons.Methuen Limited.ISBN9780413162700.
• Davenport, Frances Gardiner; Paullin, Charles Oscar, eds. (2004).European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies: Issue 254.The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.ISBN9781584774228.
• Duffy, Christopher (1996).Siege Warfare: The fortress in the early modern world, 1494-1660.New York, USA: Routledge.ISBN978-0-415-14649-4.
• Durston, Christopher (2015).Charles I.Routledge.ISBN9781135099244.
• Israel, Jonathan Irvine(1998).The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477-1806 Oxford history of early modern Europe.Clarendon Press.ISBN9780198207344.
• Manning, Roger Burrow (2006).An apprenticeship in arms: the origins of the British Army 1585-1702.London, UK: Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-926149-9.
• Markham, C. R (2007).The Fighting Veres: Lives Of Sir Francis Vere And Sir Horace Vere.Kessinger Publishing.ISBN978-1432549053.
• Robert L. Brenner.Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653,Verso (2003)ISBN1-85984-333-6
• John H. Elliot.Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830Yale University PressISBN0-300-11431-1
• Robert F. Marx.Shipwrecks in the Americas,New York (1971)ISBN0-486-25514-X
• Robert L. Paquette and Stanley L. Engerman.The Lesser Antilles in the Age of European Expansion,University Press of Florida (1996),ISBN0-8130-1428-X
• Richard B. Sheridan.Sugar and Slavery; An Economic History Of The British West Indies,1623-1775 The Johns Hopkins University Press (April 1, 1974)ISBN0-8018-1580-0
• Timothy R. Walton.The Spanish Treasure Fleets by Pineapple Press,(1994)ISBN1-56164-049-2
• David Marley.Wars of the Americas: a chronology of armed conflict in the New World, 1492 to the present,ABC-CLIO (1998),ISBN978-0-87436-837-6
• Roger Lockyer.Buckingham, the Life and Political Career of George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham, 1592–1628(Longman, 1981).
• Paul Bloomfield.Uncommon People. A Study of England's Elite(London: Hamilton, 1955).
• "Buckingham, George Villiers, 1st Duke of".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 4 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 722–724.

External links

• European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United..., Issue 254,Volume 2, Frances Gardiner Davenport