The capture of Cadiz in 1596 was a spectacular but short-lived success in England's war against Spain. More enduring were the many partisan accounts of the victory, which were prepared and disseminated by various officers from the expedition. This article traces these rival narratives and explores their circulation in manuscript form, including the earl of Essex's notorious ‘True relacion’. Such documents illustrate the increasingly bitter divisions of late Elizabethan politics. The stories of Cadiz gained a fresh currency when England and Spain went to war again in the 1620s, placing a heavy burden of expectation on the government of Charles I.