Philip reached no brilliant solutions, but at least he faced the problem and began to see how much there was still to be done. The shock of defeat had awakened him from the somnambulistic trance into which he had been plunged after the death of Mary Stuart. For the rest of his reign he was again the Prudent King, cautious even to the point of what looked like timidity, hesitant, watchful, given to second thoughts, providing against every possible contingency as far as he could before leaving anything to Providence.

Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish A…, loc. 883