Spanish Armada invasion of the Moroccan army The overwhelming numbers of the Songhai army could not defeat their Moroccan counterparts in the battle, known to history as the Battle of Tondibi; the Moroccan army was more professional, disciplined, and equipped with sophisticated weaponry The Moroccan invasion led to the demise of the Songhai, the largest empire to have emerged in western Sudan The guerrilla warfare initiated after 1591 was not formidable enough for the reassertion of political freedom The invasion led to loss of lives and property and the extension of Moroccan political hegemony over Songhai Islamic scholars and clerics fled to other parts of the western Sudan and the great Islamic centers of Timbuktu and Sankore lost their hitherto prime position Further reading: Ajayi, J F A., and Michael Crowder, eds History of West Africa, Vol I New York: Columbia University Press, 1972; Boahen, Adu Topics in West African History London: Longman, 1997; Davidson, Basil West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850 London and New York: Longman, 1998; Fage, J D A History of West Africa: An Introductory Survey Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969 Saheed Aderinto Spanish Armada The growing frictions between England and Spain in the mid-16th century gradually led to the armed conflict between the Spanish “invincible” fleet, Armada, and the English Royal Navy in the English Channel and around the British coast in 1588, resulting in the devastating defeat of Spain and a glorious triumph of Queen Elizabeth I of England When Queen Elizabeth (r 1558–1603) ascended the English throne in 1558, King Philip II of Spain (r 1556–98), who had been the husband of the English Queen Mary I (r 1553–58), showed interest in proposing marriage to Elizabeth in order to form an alliance with England to balance the French power on the Continent When Elizabeth chose to procrastinate, Philip gradually lost patience In the mid‑1580s, the situation changed dramatically, when Philip II, a fervent defender of the Roman papacy, joined his old French Catholic rivals in their wars against the French Huguenots and the Dutch Calvinists Meanwhile, Elizabeth became the archheretic of the Catholic world, after Pope Pius V excommunicated the 367 queen in 1570 for declaring herself the “Supreme Governor” of the Church of England and introducing Calvinist rituals into public worship for her people King Philip’s hostility toward Queen Elizabeth was linked closely to his own personal trouble with his Calvinist Dutch subjects In 1578, the king appointed the duke of Parma to suppress the Calvinists in the northern provinces of the Netherlands, who had been rebelling against Habsburg Dynasty control for decades While the duke gained some ground in the south, the ten northern provinces declared the independence of the United Provinces, or Dutch Republic, in 1581 Facing escalating pressure from the duke of Parma, the Dutch sought military assistance from Queen Elizabeth She sent an army of 6,000 soldiers led by the earl of Leicester to the Netherlands, and the joint Dutch and English forces began to hold a front to check Parma’s northern advance for two years (1585‑87) To Philip II, the military involvement of the English queen in his personal dynastic affairs rendered her, just as the German Lutherans, the Dutch Calvinists, and the French Huguenots, an enemy of God Philip II, moreover, felt humiliated by English piracy on the high seas, which challenged the century-long imperial dominance and commercial monopoly of Spain over the Atlantic Ocean In the 1560s, Sir John Hawkins made three risky trips, transporting West African slaves to the Americas for sale, and thus helped England gain a share in the highly profitable slave trade In the 1570s, Sir Francis Drake carried out a series of raids on Spanish treasure ships on the high seas Queen Elizabeth enjoyed her share of profits from both adventures In 1587, while the duke of Parma made progress in upsetting the Anglo-Dutch alliance in the Netherlands, the Anglo-Spanish relationship deteriorated because of two incidents In February, Elizabeth issued the order for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been a proxy in Philip’s conspiracy against the heretic English queen for about two decades In April, Sir Francis Drake led a fleet of 23 English ships, attacking the Spanish homeland, burning about 30 ships in the harbor of Cádiz, and looting treasures from the Spanish merchants worth more than 100,000 pounds in the Azores, of which Elizabeth gained 40,000 pounds Philip became convinced that the time had come to crush the middle-aged queen, whom the Catholic world despised and the Habsburgs had to destroy in order to save the Netherlands In the late summer, the strategy of the Armada invasion was designed by the king himself The Armada would sail to the English Channel at the same time as