Philip's armaments for the subjugation of England could not have been
less than six millions of ducats, and there was at least as large a sum
on board the Armada itself, although the Pope refused to pay his promised
million. And with all this outlay, and with the sacrifice of so many
thousand lives, nothing had been accomplished, and Spain, in a moment,
instead of seeming terrible to all the world, had become ridiculous.

"Beaten and shuffled together from the Lizard to Calais, from Calais
driven with squibs from their anchors, and chased out of sight of England
about Scotland and Ireland," as the Devonshire skipper expressed himself,
it must be confessed that the Spaniards presented a sorry sight. "Their
invincible and dreadful navy," said Drake, "with all its great and
terrible ostentation, did not in all their sailing about England so much
as sink or take one ship, bark, pinnace, or cock-boat of ours, or even
burn so much as one sheep-tote on this land."

Meanwhile Farnese sat chafing under the unjust reproaches heaped upon
him, as if he, and not his master, had been responsible for the gigantic
blunders of the invasion.

"As for the Prince of Parma," said Drake, "I take him to be as a bear
robbed of her whelps." The Admiral was quite right. Alexander was
beside himself with rage. Day after day, he had been repeating to Medina
Sidonia and to Philip that his flotilla and transports could scarcely
live in any but the smoothest sea, while the supposition that they could
serve a warlike purpose he pronounced absolutely ludicrous. He had
always counselled the seizing of a place like Flushing, as a basis of
operations against England, but had been overruled; and he had at least
reckoned upon the Invincible Armada to clear the way for him, before he
should be expected to take the sea.