Introduction

Abstract

‘If the late queen had believed her men of war as she did her scribes, we had in her time beaten that great empire in pieces, and made their kings kings of figs and oranges, as in old times. But her majesty did all by halves, and by petty invasions taught the Spaniard how to defend himself’.1 So wrote Sir Walter Ralegh, a decade after the death of Elizabeth I, about the great war fought between Elizabethan England and the empire ruled by the kings of Spain, which lasted from 1585 until 1604. Ralegh was never more than a second-rank soldier during Elizabeth’s reign and (ironically) only attained true fame after James I imprisoned him for treason in 1603, but his comments accurately convey the frustration which Elizabeth’s military men felt about their queen’s aversion to heavy expenditure and her habitual unwillingness to commit herself to any course of action without lengthy delay. Ralegh also captures the widespread disappointment — both during the war and afterwards — that Elizabethan England was never able to land a decisive blow which could defeat Spain and shatter its ‘great empire in pieces’.KeywordsMilitary HistoryHenry VIIIMilitary NecessityLengthy DelayNaval WarfareThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.