In 1588 King Philip of Spain dispatched a massive fleet of 130 ships, the Spanish Armada, intended to crush the English navy and reduce Queen Elizabeth I to submission. But this 'Enterprise of England', as the Spanish called it, was doomed to stormy failure. David Thomas's The Illustrated Armada Handbook examines the causes of this disaster and exposes many myths about the campaign and its principal players. The Handbook does much more than that, however: in the modern historical tradition it creates an extraordinarily detailed picture of what life was like, both ashore and on board ship, for the mariners of the sixteenth century. What were the logistics of the Armada? How many soldiers and mariners took part? How were they fed and provisioned? What were they paid? How did they navigate and fight? The answers to these and many other questions are to be found in this book. Here are the exploits of Philip and Elizabeth, Drake and Howard and Frobisher, and the Spanish admiral, Medina Sidonia. Ultimately, however, The Illustrated Armada Handbook paints a vivid picture of what it was actually like to live through the fateful summer of 1588.