In the meanwhile all Galicia was arming, and a prisoner brought in by the cattle raiders gave news that the Count de Andrada, with 8,000 men, was at Puente de Burgos, six miles off, which was {38} said to be only the beginning of a great army being got together by the Count de Altamira. On the next day, May 6th, it was determined to attack them, and nine regiments of English marched out to the fray. The vanguard, under Sir Edward Norris, was divided into three bodies under Captains Middleton, Antony Wingfield, and Ethrington, respectively, and attacked the enemy in the centre and both flanks simultaneously, routing them at the first charge. They only stopped running when they came to a fortified bridge over a creek of the sea, on the other side of which was their entrenched camp. Sir Edward Norris, with Colonel Sidney, and Captains Fulford, Hinder and others, always in front, fought hand to hand over the bridge and into the trenches, under "an incredible volie of shot for that the shot of their armie flanked upon both sides of the bridge." But the earthworks were soon abandoned, and Sir Edward Norris, in his very eagerness to be first, tumbled over his pike and hurt his head grievously. The officers of the vanguard were nearly all more or less hurt, but when the enemy had fled the usual amusement of the "common sort" commenced. All round for miles the country was burnt and spoiled, and the flying countrymen were slaughtered without mercy or quarter. "So many as 2,000 men might kill in pursuit, so many fell before us that day"; and after that was over and the men were returning, hundreds of cowering peasants were found hidden in hedges and vineyards, and their "throates" were cut. Two hundred poor creatures took refuge in a "cloyster," which was burned and the men put to the sword as they tried to escape. "You might {39} have scene the countrie more than three miles of compasse on fyre," says the English eye-witness, and he grows quite hysterical in his laudation of the English valour; but the Spanish accounts tell how the Netherlands wars, and the fears for Portugal and the French frontier, had denuded all north-western Spain of soldiers, Count de Andrada's force only being a hasty levy of undrilled and practically unarmed countrymen, who were easily routed. The next day the English began to ship their artillery and baggage and made ready to depart, after again unsuccessfully trying to fire the upper town. They managed indeed to burn down every house in the lower town, and they set sail on May 9 (O.S.), 1589.