The Capture of Hormuz (Persian: بازپس گیری هرمز) was a combined Anglo-Persian expedition that successfully captured the Portuguese garrison at Hormuz Island after a ten-week siege, thus opening up Persian trade with England in the Persian Gulf. Before the capture of Hormuz, the Portuguese had held the Castle of Hormuz for more than a century, since 1507 when Afonso de Albuquerque established it in the capture of Hormuz, giving them full control of the trade between India and Europe through the Persian Gulf. The capture of Hormuz transformed the balance of power and trade.

After the Portuguese capture of Hormuz in 1509, the Portuguese Empire began to claim a monopoly in the Indian Ocean trade, becoming a great power in the Persian Gulf after conquering Qeshm, Bandar Abbas and Muscat (present-day Oman), which generated friction with the Safavid Empire (which initially saw the Portuguese as its allies against the Ottomans). In turn, the commercial dominance of the Persian Gulf attracted the attention of England and Holland, rivals of the Iberian Union and who sought to challenge Spanish-Portuguese control in the region.

The accession of Shah Abbas the Great, saw a more aggressive Persian attitude towards the Portuguese with the Persian conquest of Bahrain, of the kingdom of Lara (Lar) and the mainland of Comoran (Bandar Abbas) in 1615. At the same time, a fortress was built in the inlet of Gwadar, halfway between Sindh and Hormuz, aiming to wrest control of trade in the area from the Portuguese.

During this period, Persian embassies were sent to Europe, and since the King of Spain, Philip III, was also the King of Portugal, the Persians tried to be friendly in order to develop a Spanish-Persian alliance against the Ottomans. Faced with this, some divergences arose between the Crown of Castile and the Council of Portugal, regarding how the foreign policy with Persia should be on the part of the Hispanic Monarchy, for which the Cortes of Castile accused a lack of realism to the Portuguese in their desire to insist on maintaining an Asian commercial monopoly that they could not impose on the rest of the European powers (while the Castilians sought a rapprochement with the English against the Dutch).

There was thus a clear divergence in the Persian Gulf between Portuguese priorities and Spanish priorities for the region: if the interests of the former were directed towards the Indian Ocean and Asia, Hormuz, due to its political and economic value, was fundamental for the maintenance of the State of India, Castilian interests were clearly oriented towards the Mediterranean, and Hormuz was important because it facilitated the approach to Persia.

— Graça Borges

Despite internal tensions between the ministers of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Portugal, the Junta of Persia was established at the end of 1618 (made up of 2 members, each, of the Council of Castile and the Council of Portugal, in total) to improve understanding between both Spanish kingdoms) to deal with the question of Hormuz, relating to: the defense of the Iberian possessions in the Persian Gulf against many threats (especially the English and Dutch), the expulsion of the English from the area (or at least to abandon their trade agreements with Persia) and how to treat the Shah's diplomatic relations along with his friendly proposals to grant the Spanish a commercial monopoly on Persian silk on the Cape route. Its purpose was conciliatory, although due to multiple misunderstandings and ambiguities (in addition to the fact that it was only consultative, while the final decisions were made by the Council of State), it only accentuated Persian warmongering.

Thus, ambassador García de Silva y Figueroa was sent with the public mission of developing an alliance between Spain (including Portugal) and Persia against the Ottoman Empire, although the real and secret mission was to ensure the commercial interests of the Portuguese colonies in the Persian Gulf, especially Hormuz. At the same time, friendly gestures were made with Iran, such as the acceptance of a trade agreement to export Persian silk through the Cape Route, although the Persians demanded that the Portuguese close the Red Sea to weaken the Ottomans, and then the Spanish requested the restitution of the Comoran fortress and that Bahrain be returned to the King of Hormuz (under Iberian protectorate). However, Spain did not have the capacity to launch an offensive against the Turks, and therefore, it only sought to buy time with the Persians by showing courtesy. Meanwhile, the Shah threatened that if the Hispanics rejected his good will, his trade offer would be handed over to the English with Robert Shirley. Finally, distrust of the English led to Ruy Freire de Andrade being sent to reconquer and fortify the eastern part of the island of Quéixome to secure economic supplies from Hormuz and expel the English from the Persian Gulf. However, the English fleet was not destroyed and Shah Abbas became angry at what he considered an attack against his sovereignty, generating rapprochements between the Persians and the English against the Portuguese and Spanish.