The Great Enterprise

This volume assembles contemporary documents of the 1588 Spanish Armada, chosen to show both Philip II's planned invasion and the English defence. Letters, dispatches, proclamations, and eyewitness notes cover the gathering of the fleet, the Channel running fight, fireships, and the storm-driven wrecks on northern coasts. Voices include courtiers, admirals, and Spanish officers as well as shore observers. Brief editorial links supply order. The book is a primary-source history of one campaign, not a full life of Elizabeth I and not a later national myth told without the papers.

Bound in blue cloth with a gilt cover medallion. Colour pictorial endpapers. Page tops stained blue. Glassine dust-jacket. Reissued in 1978 in a red slipcase. The Presentation Volume for 1979.