The rest, much battered, turned north to sail around Scotland.

In the storms nineteen ships were wrecked on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland; of thirty-five ships the Spaniards themselves {343} could give no account.

For two months Philip was in suspense as to the fate of his great Armada, of which at last only a riddled and battered remnant returned to home harbors.
The importance of the victory over the Armada, like that of most dramatic events, has been overestimated.

To contemporaries, at least to the victors and their friends it appeared as the direct judgment of God: "Flavit Deus et dissipati sunt." The gorgeous rhetoric of Ranke and Froude has painted it as one of the turning points in world history.

But in reality it rather marked than made an epoch.