Raw English infantry matched Spain’s veteran pike squares.

Evidence

But Parma, after he had tasted their quality, never underrated them. The first of their infantry to be blooded stood for the best part of two hours on the slippery mud by the Meuse at push of pike with picked Spanish veterans, and it was not the raw English levies that gave way. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 106

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the chapter’s theme of Parma as a discriminating judge of enemy quality. — connects to: Concentrated longbow fire let outnumbered English forces defeat armored knights
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 106