Graham Darby gives an anniversary account of the later Spanish Armadas, long forgotten, but comparable in size and as threatening to contemporaries as the more famous Armada of 1588. As every schoolboy and schoolgirl should know, the Spanish Armada set sail in 1588: ‘God blew and they were scattered.’ However, what they are less likely to know is that this famous victory (more meteorological than military, if the inscription on the Dutch commemorative medal shown below is to be believed) came at the beginning of a very long war, a war that lasted nearly 20 years.