[6] Details of the campaign have not been very well recorded, with conflicting accounts regarding its outcome; some sources state that the operation was inconclusive, with the English suffering heavily, including the loss of the carrack Mary Rose at the Solent,[7] while others claim that the French were defeated at each battle rather easily.

The Chronicle of Charles Wriothesley (died 1562) reports: "The 21 day of July the French galleys and navie came before Portesmouth haven, and landed certeine of theyre armye in the Yle of Wyght, and there burned and camped there about to the nomber of 2,000 men, and came every tyde with theyr gallies and shott their ordinaunce at the Kinges ships in the haven; but the winde was so calme that the Kinges shippes could bear noe sayle, which was a great discomfort for them."

Three days later a muster of 1500 men was sent from the City of London to repel them, but by the King's command turned back at Farnham, the French having left the Isle of Wight "and divers of them slaine and drowned".

On one side Seigneur Pierre Strosse was bidden to land below a little fort where the enemy had mounted some guns with which they assailed our galleys in flank, and within which a number of Island infantry had retired.

[10] A later mention by Sir John Oglander evidently paraphrases du Bellay: "They landed at three several places at one time, purposely to divide our forces.

[12]The veracity of this account has been challenged,[13] on the grounds that there were few if any local inhabitants, the militia may have been sent from the mainland, the numbers involved are uncertain, and that there would be later attempted invasions of Great Britain, culminating in the Battle of Fishguard in 1797.