In May of 1588, on the order of Spain's King Philip, 30,000 soldiers and sailors armed with arquebus and musket set out to sea. There were sixty-five galleons and other major ships of war, twenty-five urcas, and many more smaller vessels. A larger fleet had never before been assembled. In "The Voyage of the Armada," David Howarth brilliantly conveys the drama of the Spanish Armada's progress and brings to life the personalities of the men who influenced its course, from the dogmatic and irrational Philip II to Don Juan Martinez de Recalde, a veteran of many sea campaigns, to Don Pedro and Don Diego de Valdes, who were cousins but also bitter enemies, to the Spanish soldiers and sailors who unquestioningly ventured into unknown seas to confront their fates.In 1884, almost three hundred years after the Armada, Cesareo Fernandez Duro, a Spanish naval captain, published one hundred and ninety-nine letters and documents of the sixteenth century that he had discovered in the royal archives. The general public, however, remained ignorant of much of this material portraying the events of the Armada from the Spanish perspective. Basing his narrative on previously unexplored Spanish sources, David Howarth shows that there is always another side to every conflict. Illustrated with lavish maps and portraits of some of the more notable characters involved, "The Voyage of the Armada" recounts the adventures of these brave men as they go from battles to storms to wrecks and then, finally -- for the lucky ones -- return home.