Although the numbers of sail which the queen’s government and the patriotic zeal of volunteers had collected for the defense of England exceeded the number of sail in the Spanish fleet, the English ships were, collectively, far inferior in size to their adversaries, their aggregate tonnage being less by half than that of the enemy. In the number of guns and weight of metal, the disproportion was still greater. The English admiral was also obliged to subdivide his force; and Lord Henry Seymour, with forty of the best Dutch and English ships, was employed in blockading the hostile ports in Flanders, and in preventing the Duke of Parma from coming out of Dunkirk.
The Invincible Armada, as the Spaniards in the pride of their hearts named it, set sail from the Tagus on the 29th of May, but near Corunna met with a tempest that drove it into port with severe loss. It was the report of the damage done to the enemy by this storm which had caused the English court to suppose that there would be no invasion that year. But, as already mentioned, the English admiral had sailed to Corunna, and learned the real state of the case, whence he had returned with his ships to Plymouth. The Armada sailed again from Corunna on the 12th of July. The orders of King Philip to the Duke de Medina Sidonia were, that he should, on entering the Channel, keep near the French coast, and, if attacked by the English ships, avoid an action and steer on to Calais Roads, where the Prince of Parma’s squadron was to join him. The hope of surprising and destroying the English fleet in Plymouth led the Spanish admiral to deviate from these orders and to stand across to the English shore; but, on finding that Lord Howard was coming out to meet him, he resumed the original plan, and determined to bend his way steadily toward Calais and Dunkirk, and to keep merely on the defensive against such squadrons of the English as might come up with him.
It was on Saturday, the 20th of July, that Lord Effingham came in sight of his formidable adversaries. The Armada was drawn up in form of a crescent, which, from horn to horn, measured some seven miles. There was a southwest wind, and before it the vast vessels sailed slowly on. The English let them pass by; and then, following in the rear, commenced an attack on them. A running fight now took place, in which some of the best ships of the Spaniards were captured; many more received
