Battle of the Narrow Seas

Date: October 3, 1602 • Location: Dover, United Kingdom

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1602.

Anglo-Spanish War: An English fleet intercepted and attacked six Spanish ships at the Battle of the Narrow Seas (pictured).

The Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) was an intermittent conflict between Habsburg Spain and the Kingdom of England that was never formally declared. It began with England's military expedition in 1585 to what was then the Spanish Netherlands under the command of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in support of the Dutch rebellion against Spanish Habsburg rule.