Estimates of the size of the Armada increased daily. The Duke of Parma's army in the Netherlands was also swelled by report. A Papal promise of a million crowns to reward a successful invasion became a guarantee often times that amount. Terror even invented a massive force of English Catholics, who would stream out of their hiding places to join forces with Spanish soldiers and to help them hack Protestantism to pieces. The satanic features of King Philip II appeared in many dreams.

England reacted with fortitude. An army of twenty thousand men was assembled at Tilbury under the Earl of Leicester. With the muster in the adjacent counties, it was a substantial force with the task of opposing any landing. A second army was formed at St James for the defence of the Queen's person. The martial activity at once reassured and unnerved the citizens of London. They watched armed bands doing their training at Mile End and they heard the gunners of the Tower in Artillery Yard, just outside Bishopsgate, having their weekly practice with their brass ordnance against a great butt of earth. Invasion had a frightening immediacy.

Queen Elizabeth herself did not hide away and pray. She reviewed her troops at Tilbury and fired them with stirring words. But the Armada would not be defeated with speeches and Rumour was still expanding its ranks and boasting about its dark, avenging purpose. On 12 July, the vast flotilla set sail from Corunna. The defence of Queen and country now became an imperative. King Philip of Spain was about to extend his empire.

A week later, the captain of a scout-boat sent news that some Spanish vessels were off the Scillies with their sails struck as they waited for stragglers. On the ebb tide that night, Lord Admiral Howard and Sir Francis Drake brought their ships out of Plymouth Sound, making use of warps, to anchor them in deep water and be ready for action. Howard commanded the Ark Royal, the imposing flagship of the English fleet. At dawn the next day, he took fifty-four ships to the leeward of the Eddystone Rock and sailed to the south in order to be able-by working to windward-to double back on the enemy.