Spanish Armada in Ireland with the loss of about 6,000 men. By the end of September 1588 Fitzwilliam was able to report to the Queen's secretary, Lord Burghley, that the Armada alarm was over. Soon after, he reckoned that only about 100 survivors remained in the country. In 1596, an envoy of Philip II arrived in Ireland to make inquiries of survivors and was successful in only eight cases. Following the defeat of the Armada the English sent their own fleet against the Iberian peninsula, but failed to press home their advantage and returned with similar losses. At the height of the Anglo-Spanish War
3rd Spanish Armada Sir Ferdinand Gorges the Governor of the Fort at Plymouth put a 500-man guard on the town and a pinnace was sent out to feedback sightings of the Spanish fleet. Gorges was fed reports of the landings in Cornwall and Wales and sightings of Spanish ships and immediately sent the information to parliament and the Queen in London in the quickest possible time. An excited panic set in motion across much of England and Wales. Troops were being recalled from Amiens in France (it had recently been captured by the Anglo-French force the previous month) and for the mobilization of