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1588.]
SAILING OF THE ENGLISH FLEET.
563
and thanksgiving.[1] On the morning of the 20th, the coast was seen to be studded with signal fires.[2] That day a council of war was held, and it was decided to make for the entrance of Plymouth Sound, and, if circumstances favoured, to endeavour to attack the English fleet at its anchorage.[3] But the English were not to be caught napping.
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THE BEACONS IN KENT. AS ARRANGED IN ANTICIPATION OF THE SPANISH DESCENT, 1588. (From 'Lombard's Perambulation of Kent.')
As soon as Flemyng had reported, although the wind was very scant, Howard[4] warped out of harbour;[5] but on Saturday, July 20th, he found himself impeded by a south-west breeze.
"About three of the clock in the afternoon," he writes, [we] "descried the Spanish fleet, and did what we could to work for the wind, which by this morning" (July 21st) "we had recovered, descrying their fleet to consist of 120 sail,[6] whereof there are four
- ↑ Duro, doc. 159.
- ↑ Ib., doc. 165. The arrangement of the beacons in Kent is shown in the map. There was a similar arrangement in each of the other southern counties.
- ↑ Ib., doc. 185. It is difficult to understand how the instructions justified any such scheme.
- ↑ S. P. Dom. ccxii. 80. To Walsyngham, July 21st.
- ↑ With fifty-four sail. Cott. MS. Julius, F. x. 111-117. About forty sail did not get out until later.
- ↑ John Popham, writing to Walsyngham from Wellington on July 22nd, says one hundred and sixty-two sail: S. P. Dom. ccxiii. 1.
