Philip's silly plan was that the Armada should make for the Straits of Dover, where it would see that Parma's Spanish army had a safe passage from Flanders into England. Philip had lost his best admiral, Santa Cruz, and had put the Armada in charge of Medina Sidonia, a seasick landlubber, whom he ordered not to fight any more than could possibly be helped until Parma had reached England. Parma, who was a good soldier, saw at once what nonsense it was to put the army first and navy second in the fighting, because, even if he could get into England, his lines of communication with the bases in Flanders and Spain could never be safe until Drake's fleet had been beaten. He knew, as all soldiers and all sailors know, that unless you have a safe road over which to bring your supplies from your base to your front your fleets and armies must simply wither away for want of these supplies--for want of men, arms, food, and all the other things a fleet and army need. Therefore he wanted the fleet to fight first, so as to clear, or try to clear, safe roads across the sea. After these roads, or "lines of communication" between the bases and the front, had been cleared he would try to conquer England with his Spanish army.
But Philip went his own silly way; and Elizabeth, his deadly enemy, nearly helped him by having some silly plans of her own. She and her Council (all landsmen, and no great soldier among them) wanted to divide the English fleet so as to defend the different places they thought the Armada might attack. This would also please the people; for most people do like to see ships and soldiers close in front of them, even when that is quite the wrong place for the ships and soldiers to be. Of course this plan could never have worked, except in favour of the Spaniards, who might have crushed, first, one bit of the English fleet, and then another, and another, though they had no chance whatever against the united whole.
Drake's own perfect plan was to take the whole fleet straight to Lisbon and beat the Armada as it tried to get out. This would have given him an enormous advantage; first, because he would have found the Armada at once, instead of having to search for it after it had sailed; secondly, because he could have crushed it ship by ship as it came out of the Tagus; and, thirdly, because this defeat of the Armada off the coast of Portugal would certainly prevent Parma from taking his army from Flanders into England. On the 30th of March, 1588, a day to be forever remembered in the history of sea-power, Drake wrote all this from Plymouth to the Queen and her Councillors. One civilian, Sir Francis Walsingham, saw at once that Drake was right. But the others shook their heads; while even those who thought Drake knew better than they did were afraid to let the fleet go so far away, because the people liked the comfort of seeing it close beside the coast. Drake's way was the way of Nelson, Jellicoe, Beatty, and all the greatest seamen. But he was not allowed to try it till the 7th of July, when the Armada had left Lisbon and was in the harbour of Corunna at the northwest corner of the Spanish coast. And even then the Queen kept him so short of stores that he could not have waited there to take the best chance.