Two of these expeditions are distinguished by their importance. The first was a joint-stock venture of Drake and Norris--the foremost sailor and the foremost soldier among Englishmen of that day--in the year after the great Armada (April 1589). They and some private backers found most of the capital. The Queen contributed six royal ships and £20,000. This fleet carried no less than 11,000 soldiers, for the aim was to wrest Portugal from the Spaniard and set up Don Antonio, a representative of the dethroned dynasty. Stopping on their way at Corunna, they took the lower town, destroyed large stores, and defeated in the field a much superior force marching to the relief of the place. Norris mined and breached the walls of the upper town; but the storming parties having been repulsed with great loss, the army re-embarked and pursued its voyage. Landing at Peniché, Norris marched fifty miles by Vimiero and Torres Vedras, names famous afterwards in the military annals of England, and on the seventh day arrived before Lisbon. But he had no battering train; for Drake, who had brought the fleet round to the mouth of the Tagus, judged it dangerous to enter the river. Nor did the Portuguese rise, as had been hoped. The army therefore, marching through the suburbs of Lisbon, rejoined the fleet at Cascaes, and proceeded to Vigo. That town was burnt, and the surrounding country plundered. This was the last exploit of the expedition. Great loss and dishonour had been inflicted on Spain; but no less than half of the soldiers and sailors had perished by disease; and the booty, though said to have been large, was a disappointment to the survivors. The other great expedition was in 1596. The capture of Calais in April of that year by the Spaniards, had renewed the alarm of invasion, and it was determined to meet the danger at a distance from home. A great fleet, with 6000 soldiers on board, commanded by Essex and Howard of Effingham sailed straight to Cadiz, the principal port and arsenal of Spain. The harbour was forced by the fleet, the town and castle stormed by the army, several men-of-war taken or destroyed, a large merchant-fleet burnt, together with an immense quantity of stores and merchandise; the total value being estimated at twenty millions of ducats. This was by far the heaviest blow inflicted by England upon Spain during the reign, and was so regarded in Europe; for though the great Armada had been signally defeated by the English fleet, its subsequent destruction was due to the winds and waves. Essex was vehemently desirous to hold Cadiz; but Effingham and the Council of War appointed by the Queen would not hear of it. The expedition accordingly returned home, having effectually relieved England from the fear of invasion. The burning of Penzance by four Spanish galleys (1595) was not much to set against these great successes.