Note (Back to Main Text) — Chapter II · THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.

Thus preciously freighted, the Spanish fleet, a hundred and fifty ships, large and small, sailed from Corunna at the beginning of July. The voyage was weary and wretched. The sea-sickness prostrated both the prince and the troops, and to the sea-sickness was added the terror of the French—a terror, as it happened, needless, for the English exiles, by whom the prince was to have been intercepted, had, in the last few weeks, melted away from the French service, with the exception of a few who were at Scilly. Sir Peter Carew, for some unknown reason, had written to ask for his pardon, and had gone to Italy;[334] but the change was recent and unknown, and the ships stole along in silence, the orders of the prince being that not a salute should be fired to catch the ear of an enemy.[335] At last, on the 19th of July, the white cliffs of Freshwater were sighted; Lord Howard lay at the Needles with the English fleet; and on Friday, the 20th, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the flotilla was safely anchored in Southampton Water.