Parma waded at the head of his troops across the Cadzand strait

Evidence

On the morning of June 13th Parma led a picked force of Spaniards floundering across, holding their weapons above their heads to keep them dry, some of them breast high in mud and water, those unlucky enough to slip plastered with slime from head to foot, the duke himself as muddy as any. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 304

Categorization

• FICTION: The duke himself as muddy as his men — a sensory, humanizing detail perfect for a scene in contemporary fiction.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 304