In every one of the Armada’s hundred and twenty-eight vessels, says an officer of the Spanish flagship, ’our people kneeled down and offered a prayer, beseeching our Lord to give us victory against the enemies of His holy faith.’  The crews of the hundred and ninety-seven English vessels which, at one time or another, were present in some capacity on the scene of action also prayed for victory to the Lord of Hosts, but took the proper naval means to win it.  ’Trust in the Lord—­and keep your powder dry,’ said Oliver Cromwell when about to ford a river in the presence of the enemy.  And so, in other words, said Drake.

All day long, on that fateful 20th of July, the visible Armada with its swinging canvas was lying-to fifteen miles west of the invisible, bare-masted English fleet.  Sidonia held a council of war, which, landsman-like, believed that the English were divided, one-half watching Parma, the other the Armada.  The trained soldiers and sailors were for the sound plan of attacking Plymouth first.  Some admirals even proposed the only perfect plan of crushing Drake in detail as he issued from the Sound.  All were in blissful ignorance of the astounding feat of English seamanship which had already robbed them of the only chance they ever had.  But Philip, also landsman-like, had done his best to thwart his own Armada; for Sidonia produced the royal orders forbidding any attack on England till he and Parma had joined hands.  Drake, however, might be crushed piecemeal in the offing when still with his aftermost ships in the Sound.  So, with this true idea, unworkable because based on false information, the generals and admirals dispersed to their vessels and waited.  But then, just as night was closing in, the weather lifted enough to reveal Drake’s astonishing position.  Immediately pinnaces went scurrying to Sidonia for orders.  But he had none to give.  At one in the morning he learnt some more dumbfounding news:  that the English had nearly caught him at Corunna, that Drake and Howard had joined forces, and that both were now before him.

Nor was even this the worst.  For while the distracted Sidonia was getting his fleet into the ‘eagle formation,’ so suitable for galleys whose only fighting men were soldiers, the English fleet was stealing the weather gage, his one remaining natural advantage.  An English squadron of eight sail manoeuvred coast-wise on the Armada’s inner flank, while, unperceived by the Spanish lookout, Drake stole away to sea, beat round its outer flank, and then, making the most of a westerly slant in the shifting breeze, edged in to starboard.  The Spaniards saw nothing till it was too late, Drake having given them a berth just wide enough to keep them quiet.  But when the sun rose, there, only a few miles off to windward, was the whole main body of the English fleet, coming on in faultless line-ahead, heeling nicely over on the port tack before the freshening breeze, and, far from waiting for the Great Armada, boldly bearing down to the attack.  With this consummate move the victory was won.