The subsequent extract from Strype's Annals, A. D. 1586, contains the history of this event.
“The queen this year had enemies on all hands of her, and continual apprehensions of invasion, especially from Spain, now that the queen had taken the people of the Low Countries under her protection. And to secure herself by sea sir Francis Drake was sent out with forty gallies, for defence and offence, and did notable execution, which our historians mention: and of this sir George Carew, governor of the Isle of Wight, gave intelligence from thence unto the earl of Sussex, lord lieutenant of the county of Southampton, upon occasion of the strong report that came to court, that they were all up in that Isle of Wight, which, as things then stood abroad, inclined men to believe.