This event did not bode well with the Catholic king of Spain whom "despised the idea of another foreign monarch aiding a rebellion in his territory." Desperately, the Spanish Armada, the largest and most powerful navy in Europe, was prematurely launched to attack against the English. The Armada's purpose was to, "drive out Elizabeth so England could be recatholicized" simultaneously alongside the Netherlands." .
However, after the events unfolded, the once dominant Spanish Armada was ultimately defeated causing power to shift among the European nations. Spain's so-called "Invincible Armada" was defeated by an English naval force. After eight hours of furious fighting, a change in wind direction prompted the Spanish to break off from the battle and retreat toward the North Sea. Its hopes of invasion was crushed and the remnants of the Spanish Armada began their long and difficult journey back to Spain. Consequently, the Spanish Armanda was not efficiently prepared for this fight against the English. The defeat of the Armada was mainly produced because of bad communications between crews, inadequate ships, and lack of experience with England's weather and climate. .
It was perhaps an omen from the start, the Spanish faced problems. Sequentially, the Spanish Armada had a bit of the difficulty in shared communication between the different ships in Armada. There were various spoken languages used by the different crews in the fleet. This was due to the fact that, "the Spanish King Phillip controlled many different regions so languages spoken by the crews included Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish." Secondly, the ships in the armada were very large, but not as agile as compared to the English ships. The Spanish ships were, "slower and less well armed than their English counterparts, but the Spanish planned to force boarding actions if the English offered battle in hopes the superior Spanish infantry would undoubtedly prevail.