This lost them their last chance of
helping Parma into England. But it also saved Parma from losing the
whole of his army at sea. Once more the brave, though cruel, Spaniards
tried to fight the English fleet. But all in vain. This was the end.
It came at Gravelines, on the 29th of July 1588, just ten days after
Captain Fleming of the _Golden Hind_ had stopped Drake's game of bowls
at Plymouth. North, and still north, the beaten Armada ran for its
life; round by the stormy Orkneys, down the wild waters of the Hebrides
and Western Ireland, strewing the coasts with wreckage and dead men,
till at last the few surviving ships limped home.
[Illustration: ARMADA OFF POWEY (Cornwall) as first seen in the English
Channel.]
There never was a better victory nor one more clearly gained by greater
skill. Nor has there ever been a victory showing more clearly how
impossible it is to keep sea empires safe without a proper navy.
But, after all, it is the whole Sea-Dog war, and not any single battle
or campaign, that really made those vast changes in world-history which
we enjoy today.
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