The battle lasted six hours long, hot and furious; for now there was no excuse for retreat on the part of the Spaniards, but, on the contrary, it was the intention of the Captain-General to return to his station off Calais, if it were within his power.  Nevertheless the English still partially maintained the tactics which had proved so successful, and resolutely refused the fierce attempts of the Spaniards to lay themselves along-side.  Keeping within musket-range, the well-disciplined English mariners poured broadside after broadside against the towering ships of the Armada, which afforded so easy a mark; while the Spaniards, on their part, found it impossible, while wasting incredible quantities of powder and shot, to inflict any severe damage on their enemies.  Throughout the action, not an English ship was destroyed, and not a hundred men were killed.  On the other hand, all the best ships of the Spaniards were riddled through and through, and with masts and yards shattered, sails and rigging torn to shreds, and a north-went wind still drifting them towards the fatal sand-batiks of Holland, they, laboured heavily in a chopping sea, firing wildly, and receiving tremendous punishment at the hands of Howard Drake, Seymour, Winter, and their followers.  Not even master-gunner Thomas could complain that day of “blind exercise” on the part of the English, with “little harm done” to the enemy.  There was scarcely a ship in the Armada that did not suffer severely; for nearly all were engaged in that memorable action off the sands of Gravelines.  The Captain-General himself, Admiral Recalde, Alonzo de Leyva, Oquendo, Diego Flores de Valdez, Bertendona, Don Francisco de Toledo, Don Diego de Pimentel, Telles Enriquez, Alonzo de Luzon, Garibay, with most of the great galleons and galeasses, were in the thickest of the fight, and one after the other each of those huge ships was disabled.  Three sank before the fight was over, many others were soon drifting helpless wrecks towards a hostile shore, and, before five o’clock, in the afternoon, at least sixteen of their best ships had been sacrificed, and from four to five thousand soldiers killed.

["God hath mightily preserved her Majesty’s forces with the least losses that ever hath been heard of, being within the compass of so great volleys of shot, both small and great.  I verily believe there is not threescore men lost of her Majesty’s forces.”  Captain J. Fenner to Walsingham, 4/14 Aug. 1588. (S.  P. Office Ms.)]

Nearly all the largest vessels of the Armada, therefore, having, been disabled or damaged—­according to a Spanish eye-witness—­and all their small shot exhausted, Medina Sidonia reluctantly gave orders to retreat.  The Captain-General was a bad sailor; but he was, a chivalrous Spaniard of ancient Gothic blood, and he felt deep mortification at the plight of his invincible fleet, together with undisguised:  resentment against Alexander Farnese, through whose