In the treaty, England and Spain restored the status quo ante bellum, agreed to cease their military interventions in the Netherlands and Ireland respectively, and resumed trade; the English ended their high seas privateering and the Spanish recognized James as king.

A slaving expedition led by Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake was surprised by the Spanish in September 1568, and several ships were captured or sunk at the Battle of San Juan de Ulúa near Veracruz in New Spain.

Francis Drake went on a privateering voyage during which he eventually circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 1580; Spanish colonial ports were plundered and a number of ships were captured, including the treasure galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción.

[12] During the siege of Grave the following year, Dudley attempted its relief, but the Dutch garrison commander Hadewij van Hemert surrendered the town to the Spanish.

In April 1587 Philip's preparations suffered a setback when Francis Drake burned 37 Spanish ships in the harbour of Cádiz, and as a result the invasion of England had to be postponed for over a year.

While the English were able to persist in their privateering against the Spanish and continue sending troops to assist Philip II's enemies in the Netherlands and France, these efforts brought few tangible rewards.

With Portuguese and Spanish reinforcements arriving, the English were forced to retreat; they sailed north – tossing the dead overboard by the hundred along the way – where Drake sacked and burned Vigo.

Young William Fenner, who had come from England with 17 supply ships commanded by Captain Cross, was separated from the fleet after a storm and found himself heading toward the archipelago of Madeira, ultimately anchoring in Porto Santo where, the next day, seven more English vessels joined him.

In the face of increasing sickness and deaths, he abandoned the venture and limped back to Plymouth with Captain Diego de Aramburu's flotilla of zabras harassing him nearly the entire way.

[25] Through this lost opportunity, Philip was able to revive his navy the very next year, sending 37 ships with 6,420 men to Brittany where they established a base of operations on the Blavet river.

With Spanish forces in France supporting the Catholic League as well as in the Low Countries, Maurice was able to take advantage, and thus started a gradual reconquest of the Netherlands, which became known by the Dutch as the "Ten Glorious Years".

When Maurice did go on the offensive an attempt to take Grol in July ended in failure when a Spanish force under 90-year-old veteran Cristóbal de Mondragón relieved the city.

Cumberland with Sir Walter Raleigh and Martin Frobisher combined financial strength and force that led to the most successful English naval expedition of the war.

[39] Raleigh himself in 1595 went on an expedition to explore the Orinoco river in an attempt to find the mythical city of El Dorado; in the process the English plundered the Spanish settlement of Trinidad.

[42] Both Drake and Hawkins died of disease on the later 1595–96 expedition against Puerto Rico, Panama, and other targets in the Spanish Main, a severe setback in which the English suffered heavy losses in soldiers and ships despite a number of minor military victories.

In August 1595, a Spanish naval force from Brittany led by Carlos de Amésquita landed in Cornwall, raiding and burning Penzance and several nearby villages.

During the summer of 1596, an Anglo-Dutch expedition under Elizabeth's young favourite, the Earl of Essex, sacked Cádiz, causing significant loss to the Spanish fleet, leaving the city in ruins and delaying a projected descent on England.

Despite its failure to capture the treasure fleet, the sack of Cádiz was celebrated as a national triumph comparable to the victory over the Spanish Armada, and for a time Essex's prestige rivalled Elizabeth's own.

In its final years, English privateering continued despite the strengthening of Spanish navy convoys – Cumberland's last expedition in 1598 to the Caribbean led to the capture of San Juan, and had succeeded where Drake had failed.

[46] Finally, just days before the signing of the peace treaty in August 1604, future admiral Antonio de Oquendo defeated and captured an English privateer in the Gulf of Cádiz.

The following year the Dutch senate led by Johan van Oldenbarneveldt saw the chaos in the Spanish army and decided the time was ripe for a focal point of the war to be concentrated in Catholic Flanders.

At Ostend in January 1602 after being reinforced, Vere faced a huge Spanish frontal assault organised by the Archduke Albert and in bitter fighting this was repelled with heavy losses.

Vere left the city soon after and joined Maurice in the field, while Albert, who drew much criticism from army commanders for his tactics, was replaced by the talented Ambrogio Spinola.

Henry IV's conversion to Catholicism in 1593 won him widespread French support for his claim to the throne, particularly in Paris (where he was crowned the following year), a city that he had unsuccessfully besieged in 1590.

In 1594 Anglo-French forces were able to end Spanish hopes of using the large port of Brest as a launching point for an invasion of England by capturing Fort Crozon.

In fact, the first tentative talks on peace between the French and Spanish crowns had already begun before the battle and the League hardliners were already losing popular support throughout France to a resurgent Henry after his conversion to Roman Catholicism which was bolstered by his military successes.

In time, their Irish allies arrived to surround the besieging force but the lack of communication with the rebels led to an English victory at the Battle of Kinsale.

[60] Off Portugal, they sailed into Sesimbra bay where a fleet of eight Spanish galleys under Federico Spinola (brother of Ambrogio) and Álvaro de Bazán were present.

[71] The Dutch by 1607 had in fact prevailed; the Spanish did not deliver the knockout blow that they had sought, and the Twelve Years' Truce effectively recognized the independence of the Republic.

[90] The resulting anti-Catholic backlash following the discovery of the plot put to rest Protestant fears that a peace with Spain would ultimately mean an invasion by Jesuits and Catholic sympathisers, as the Elizabethan recusancy laws were rigidly enforced by Parliament.