Probably the great - and initial - failure of King Philip's Spanish Armada in 1588 was that it did not achieve its primary objective of ferrying Parma's army in the Netherlands across to England. It had not been sent for the purpose of grappling with the British fleet in the Channel, though when it did so, it did not perform badly. Two factors were against it from the start - Drake's raid on Cadiz, which caused irreparable damage, and the sudden death of Spain's best sailor, the Marquis of Santa Cruz. Medina Sidonia, his successor, had never been to sea, yet did better than might have been expected; on the English side, Frobisher and Hawkins were probably the chief heroes. In spite of Philip's efforts to depict the venture as a Catholic crusade, it was mainly about power politics - and trade also, since English freebooters had been wreaking havoc with Continental shipping. This fair-minded book sets the whole campaign in the dense context of European politics at the time.