On the other hand, a merchant of Lisbon, not yet reconciled to the Spanish conquest of his country, permitted himself some tokens of hilarity at the defeat of the Armada, and was immediately hanged by express command of Philip.

Thus--as men said--one could neither cry nor laugh within the Spanish dominions.
This was the result of the invasion, so many years preparing, and at an expense almost incalculable.

In the year 1588 alone, the cost of Philip's armaments for the subjugation of England could not have been less than six millions of ducats, and there was at least as large a sum on board the Armada itself, although the Pope refused to pay his promised million.
And with all this outlay, and with the sacrifice of so many thousand lives, nothing had been accomplished, and Spain, in a moment, instead of seeming terrible to all the world, had become ridiculous.
"Beaten and shuffled together from the Lizard to Calais, from Calais driven with squibs from their anchors, and chased out of sight of England about Scotland and Ireland," as the Devonshire skipper expressed himself, it must be confessed that the Spaniards presented a sorry sight.

"Their invincible and dreadful navy," said Drake, "with all its great and terrible ostentation, did not in all their sailing about England so much as sink or take one ship, bark, pinnace, or cock-boat of ours, or even burn so much as one sheep-tote on this land." Meanwhile Farnese sat chafing under the unjust reproaches heaped upon him, as if he, and not his master, had been responsible for the gigantic blunders of the invasion.
"As for the Prince of Parma," said Drake, "I take him to be as a bear robbed of her whelps." The Admiral was quite right.

Alexander was beside himself with rage.