The English ambassador was unwilling to be known as the author--although "desirous of touching up the impudence of the Spaniard"-- but the King had no doubt of its origin.

Poor Henry, still smarting under the insults of Mendoza and 'Mucio,--was delighted with this blow to Philip's presumption; was loud in his praises of Queen Elizabeth's valour, prudence, and marvellous fortune, and declared that what she had just done could be compared to the greatest: exploits of the most illustrious men in history.
"So soon as ever he saw the pamphlet," said Stafford; "he offered to lay a wager it was my doing; and laughed at it heartily." And there were malicious pages about the French; court; who also found much amusement in writing to the ambassador, begging his interest with the Duke of Parma that they might obtain from that conqueror some odd-refuse town or so in: England, such as York, Canterbury, London, or the like--till the luckless Don Bernardino was ashamed to show his face.
A letter, from Farnese, however, of 10th August, apprized Philip before the end of August of the Calais disasters and caused him great uneasiness, without driving him to despair.

"At the very moment," wrote the King to Medina Sidonia; "when I was expecting news of the effect hoped for from my Armada, I have learned the retreat from before Calais, to which it was compelled by the weather; [!] and I have received a very great shock which keeps, me in anxiety not to be exaggerated.
Nevertheless I hope in our Lord that he will have provided a remedy; and that if it was possible for you to return upon the enemy to come back to the appointed posts and to watch an opportunity for the great stroke; you will have done as the case required; and so I am expecting with solicitude, to hear what has happened, and please God it may be that which is so suitable for his service." His Spanish children the sacking of London, and the butchering of the English nation-rewards and befits similar to those which they bad formerly enjoyed in the Netherlands.
And in the same strain, melancholy yet hopeful, were other letters despatched on that day to the Duke of Parma.

"The satisfaction caused by your advices on the 8th August of the arrival of the Armada near Calais, and of your preparations to embark your troops, was changed into a sentiment which you can imagine, by your letter of the 10th.

The anxiety thus occasioned it would be impossible to exaggerate, although the cause being such as it is--there is no ground for distrust.