Emily, 9

by Emily Swann
(San Diego, CA)

The Spanish Armada

Trying to defeat England was hard. Even our Armada couldn’t defeat them. The journey we took from France to England in 1588 was not fun. We made the journey so we could invade England.

We wanted to attack the English because they weren’t Roman Catholic! Henry VIII made the new Church of England, which made England a Protestant nation. Spain wanted to conquer England and return it to a Catholic nation.

We had nasty storms when we were trying to get to the coast. But, before we could get ashore, the English spotted us! They soon met us when we fought the Battle of the Gravelines. We were one of the three galleons who attacked the English near Gravelines. Soon, we ran out of ammunition, so we couldn’t invade.

Instead of turning around back towards France, we had to go around Scotland and Ireland because the English were chasing us. The natives in Scotland and Ireland weren’t very nice. If your ship wrecked and you washed up on shore, they tried to kill you. That happened to lots of my friends.

When we returned, only 65 of the 130 ships remained. We really got beaten badly. We might have thought we were invincible, but we aren’t, as it turns out.