The fevered duke repudiated his own command and the King’s choice of him

Evidence

In one note to Idiáquez he wandered from the subject to protest that the King had been wrong ever to place him in command of the Armada. He knew nothing, he said, echoing his first response to the appointment and forgetting the grim lesson of the summer past, of the sea or of war. He had warned the King that he would be ill-served by a general who had no judgment of his own in these affairs, and did not even know whom to trust. And now see how things had turned out! He would never command at sea again – no, not if his head should pay for it! — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 837

Categorization

• FICTION: The sick, half-delirious commander renouncing his own career is a devastating character moment.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 837