THIRTY YEARS WAR

ENGLAND
G H I Ț Ă - M E H E D I N Ț U A L E X A N D R U , 1 0 TH G R A D E
ANGLO-SPANISH WAR (1625–1630)

• The Anglo–Spanish War was a war fought by Spain

against the Kingdom of England and the United
Provinces from 1625 to 1630. The conflict formed part of
the Eighty Years' War and the Thirty Years' War.
• Date : 1625–1630
• Location: Atlantic Ocean, English Channel, Low Countries, Spain and the
Spanish Main
• Result: Spanish victory
• Spain seeks and signs peace treaty with England in light of imminent war
with France
• Treaty of Madrid, similar to previous Anglo-Spanish treaty although
somewhat less strict regarding trade
• England bankruptcy practically ends English support to Dutch Republic in
Eighty Years' War
 BACKGROUND

• In 1620, Philip IV reigned in Spain, with Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares

as his favourite. The War of Flanders had reignited after the Twelve-Year Truce, and
Spain's finances flowed from its imports of silver from its American colonies. James I
was King of England, Scotland and Ireland, with his son Charles, Prince of Wales, as
his heir. At this time the Kingdom of England had military ties with the United
Provinces, which they had assisted in the War of Flanders.
• Around this time a series of events unfolded resulting in the resumption of hostilities
between the two kingdoms. During the Thirty Years' War which broke out in Europe,
Frederick V of the Palatinate and his wife Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of the King
of England, were defeated and dispossessed by the Spanish Tercios.
• George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, accompanied the Prince of Wales on a
trip to Madrid to arrange the details of the proposed wedding between Charles
and Maria Anna of Spain, however these negotiations proved unsuccessful.
• In March 1624, James I, previously a pacifist, declared war on Spain with the
support of the House of Commons; the House of Commons appropriated funding
for the prosecution of the war. The next year James I died following a bout of
dysentery. His successor, Charles I, pushed forward the preparations for war against
Spain, even before he was crowned as king, with the assistance of the Duke of
Buckingham.
 Philip IV of Spain The Duke of Buckingham

Gaspar de Guzmán Charles I of England

 SIEGE OF BREDA

• In August 1624, Spanish General Don Ambrosio

Spinola ordered the Dutch city of Breda besieged
by his forces. The city of Breda 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 under Maurice 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 Sir Horace
Vere and Ernst von Mansfeld, was also defeated.
• Finally, Justin of Nassau surrendered Breda to the
Spaniards in June 1625 after an eleven-month siege.
 CÁDIZ EXPEDITION
• By October 1625, approximately 100 ships and a total of 15,000 seamen and soldiers were readied for
the Cádiz 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 the English
Channel in 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 the Duke 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 the Electorate 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 of England, 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 the Cadiz 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 the English 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
French Huguenots, in exchange for French aid against the Spanish
occupying the Electorate of the Palatinate, but the Parliament of
England was disgusted and horrified at the thought of English Protestants
fighting French Protestants. The plan only fuelled their fears of crypto-
Catholicism at 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 the Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré and at the
Siege of La Rochelle. In this campaign the English lost more than 4,000
men of a force of 7,000 men. On August 23, while organising a second
campaign in Portsmouth, England in 1628, Buckingham was stabbed to
death at the Greyhound Pub by John Felton, an army officer who had
been wounded at the Siege of La Rochelle.
 ST. KITTS AND NEVIS

• In 1629, a Spanish naval expedition, commanded

by Admiral Don Fadrique de Toledo, was sent to
deal with the recently established Anglo-French
colonies on the Caribbean islands of Saint 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 the Spanish West Indies. In the Battle of St.
Kitts, the heavily armed settlements on both islands
were destroyed and the Spanish seized the islands.
 AFTERMATH

• Following these defeats, England altered its involvement in the

Thirty Years War by negotiating a peace treaty with France in
1629. Thereafter expeditions were undertaken by the Duke of
Hamilton and Lord Craven to the Holy Roman Empire in
support of the thousands of Scottish mercenaries already
serving under the King of Sweden in that conflict. Hamilton's
levy was raised despite the end of the Anglo-Spanish War.
• In 1630, Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England signed the
Treaty of Madrid, ending the war. It had proven a costly fiasco
for England and Scotland, but merely a minor distraction for
the Spanish and French, who were occupied by the wars
engulfing Europe. In England, the war costs and
mismanagement fueled the fire of disputes between the
Monarchy and Parliament that began before the English Civil
War.