Harold Titus's Blog - Posts Tagged "philip-ii"
Not Insensible to Human Emotions
Elizabeth I was crowned Queen of England in 1558. She was Henry VIII’s third child to rule.
During her half-brother Edward’s six year reign (1547-1553) the Anglican Church underwent substantial Protestant reform. Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon’s only child, Mary, succeeded Edward in 1553. She was a resolute Catholic. Dubbed “Bloody Mary,” she married Prince Philip of Spain in 1554 and persecuted Protestants severely. Philip remained in England during Mary’s phantom pregnancy. When it became clear that she was not with child, he left England to wage war against his arch enemy France. He became King of Spain in 1556. Two years later Mary died. For 47 years Philip would be Elizabeth’s most dangerous enemy.
Philip II was Catholicism’s staunchest champion. Whether it be accomplished by marriage, assassination, or military conquest, he was determined that England would again be a Catholic nation. Elizabeth parried him adroitly. Their conflict reached its climax in 1588 when Philip sent his great armada of war ships into the English Channel.
For more than a decade Elizabeth tried not to provoke him. Her treatment of English Catholics, although restrictive, was not oppressive. Early on, her primary advisors, believing that no woman should rule a nation independently, pressured her to marry a Catholic prince. They feared dissention, chaos, and foreign aggression. They were adamant that she end all dispute about who should be her successor. The birth of a child fathered by a foreign prince would settle it. Elizabeth used their persuasions to her own advantage. Philip offered to marry her in 1559. He would return England to Papal authority and he would protect Spain’s commercial interests in the Netherlands by allying Spain with England. Elizabeth rejected his proposal. He sought then to persuade her to marry his cousin, Archduke Charles of Austria. Interpreting Elizabeth’s conduct, Philip’s ambassador ventured that although she had “never set her heart upon, nor wished to marry anyone in the world” there was yet hope. “She was but human and not insensible to human emotions and impulses.” She appeared to be amenable, but she harbored reservations. She would rather be a nun than marry “on the faith of portrait painters.” She “had heard rumours that Charles had an abnormally large head: she dared not risk accepting a deformed husband” (Weir 65). Charles would have to come to England to be inspected. The Holy Roman Emperor (Charles’s father) vetoed her stipulation, as Elizabeth knew he would. Seemingly indecisive, she prolonged marriage negotiations until it became obvious to the Austrians and Philip that she would not comply.
Elizabeth understood that Philip needed her now as his ally in his dealings with France. He would be willing to overlook temporarily the fact that she was Protestant if she provided him assistance. England had long ago earned France’s enmity. Henry VIII had invaded France. Henry II, the current French king, believed that the English annulment of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon’s marriage had been illegal. Elizabeth was, therefore, a bastard, not entitled to rule. The legitimate English queen was Mary, Queen of Scots. This was because Margaret, Henry VIII’s older sister, had been Mary’s grandmother. Margaret and her husband, King James IV of Scotland, had produced Mary’s father, James V. Mary’s mother was the French noblewoman Mary of the powerful House of Guise. James V had died days after Mary’s birth. Mary had been raised in France by the Guise family while Catholic regents had ruled Scotland. Not yet 16, Mary had married Henry II’s son Francis, the French Dauphin in 1558, the same year Elizabeth had become Queen.
An unexpected torrent of events changed Europe’s political landscape in 1559. Philip married Elisabeth of Valois, Henry II’s daughter. Henry II died from a jousting accident. Mary’s husband Francis became king. France and Spain signed a peace treaty. England and France signed a peace settlement. Francis II, the new King of France, influenced by Mary’s mother, his Guise uncles, and his own mother, Catherine de Medici, remained bellicose. Francis boasted that he would have himself declared King of England. Elizabeth fired back: “I will take a husband who will give the King of France some trouble, and do him more harm than he expects” (Weir 75).
Behind her bravado was alarm. Mary of Guise was now regent of Scotland; French troops were stationed there; Elizabeth feared a two-prong attack. She did not foresee that Francis II and Mary of Guise would both die the following year (1560), that Protestant lords would gain the upper hand in Scotland, that the Treaty of Edinburgh would remove French soldiers from Scotland, and that religious wars between Catholics and Huguenots in France were about to tear France apart.
With the French threat diminished, Mary, Queen of Scots, now became the focal point of Elizabeth’s concern. Mary’s mother-in-law, Catherine de Medici, the Queen Regent of France, sent Mary back to Scotland in August 1561. Eighteen years old, Mary needed a new husband. Elizabeth was concerned that Mary might marry a prince from one of the royal houses of Spain, Austria, or France. That would place the Catholic threat right back at her back doorstep. Scotland could be used as a springboard for an invasion of England. Elizabeth wanted Mary’s husband to be Robert Dudley, Elizabeth’s long-time Protestant friend and advisor (and presumed lover). Philip II approved. Dudley and Mary did not. Dudley wanted to be Elizabeth’s husband and King Regent. Mary believed that Dudley was beneath her. In 1565 she married the British subject Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, a descendent of Henry VIII’s sister Margaret from her second marriage.
No longer needing Elizabeth as an ally, Philip now looked upon Mary as the means to return England to Catholicism. Mary’s minimal demand had been that Elizabeth declare her to be next in line to the English throne. Her lineage and her husband’s lineage traced back separately to Henry VIII’s older sister. But, quickly, Mary all but destroyed her chances of a peaceful ascendency. Unable to control her passions, much to Philip’s horror, she indulged in love affairs that led to two murders – that of her secretary/lover in 1566 and of Darnley in 1567 – murders in which many of her subjects believed she was complicit. Fearful that she might be tried for conspiracy to commit murder, she abdicated her throne July 24, 1567. Her year old son -- Elizabeth’s eventual successor -- was crowned James VI of Scotland. Protestant lords placed Mary in custody in Lochleven. She escaped May 2, 1568. The 6,000 man army raised to defend her was defeated eleven days later. She fled into England May 26.
These events placed Elizabeth in a most precarious position. Unless Mary was cleared of the charges of conspiring to murder Darnley, Elizabeth could not receive her. Sending her back to Scotland would mean her death. Sending Mary to France or Spain would encourage those countries all the more to attempt to depose her. Philip’s large army lay close by in the Netherlands, where it had been quashing Huguenot rebellion. Allowing Mary to be at liberty in England as a private citizen would inspire Catholic malcontents to rally to her cause. Elizabeth decided to keep Mary in custody as an “honorable guest.” Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s ministers would create a tribunal. The tribunal would investigate the conspiracy charges declared against Mary. It would then determine her innocence or guilt.
The inquiry began October 4. Letters were produced by the prosecution that clearly implicated Mary. Her defenders claimed that the letters were forgeries. The tribunal commissioners declared them authentic but were divided about how they should proceed. Elizabeth would not allow them to declare Mary innocent, aware of the strength of adverse public opinion against Mary. She was cognizant also that Catholic subjects could begin to view Mary as their champion. Worst of all, Mary wanted Elizabeth’s crown now. She had written the Queen of Spain that with Philip’s help she would “make ours the reigning religion” in England (Weir 199). In January 1569 the commissioners declared that nothing had been proved -- that, in effect, Mary was neither guilty nor innocent. Elizabeth placed Mary in the custody of George Talbot, Sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, at whose residence she would remain for most of the next 15 years.
There still remained the issue of Elizabeth’s eventual successor. Would Elizabeth in fact marry and give birth? If not, would she actually name her successor? And how could she continue to thwart Philip II? At the end of June 1565 she had rejected the marriage proposal of the fourteen-year-old King Charles IX of France. Several of her advisors had then revived their efforts to convince her to marry Charles, the Austrian Archduke. Elizabeth made conditions that the Holy Roman Emperor would not accept. Foremost, Charles would not renounce his faith. But the Emperor was willing to compromise. If Elizabeth would allow Charles to attend mass in private, he would publicly accompany her to Anglican services. If this concession was agreeable, he would marry Elizabeth at once. Elizabeth instructed her emissary, Lord Sussex, to inform the Emperor that her conscience and her policy of religious uniformity would not allow her to permit Charles to practice his religion in private. She knew that attitudes in her country about religion had hardened and that her acceptance of this compromise would invite controversy, quite possibly rebellion, perhaps even civil war. “She wished to make clear to her subjects that she would do nothing to forfeit their love and loyalty, and that she would never allow the laws of her country to be broken, even by her husband” (Weir 192-193).
Then there was the difficulty of Protestant rebellion in the northern provinces of the Netherlands and the presence there of Philip’s soldiers. Catholic churches had been desecrated. Imperial officials had been attacked. Philip had sent to the provinces the Duke of Alva and 50,000 soldiers. The rebellion had been crushed, but the army had remained, too close to England for Elizabeth’s ease of mind. She sympathized with the rebels, but she could not send them assistance for fear of Spanish retaliation. It was at this time that Mary abdicated her throne, escaped her imprisonment in Scotland, and fled to England.
In 1569 Elizabeth witnessed just how serious was the threat that she could be deposed. Catholic lords in northern England – led by the Earls Northumberland and Westmorland -- had conceived a plan to foment rebellion, murder royal officials, liberate Mary, whom they had been in contact, replace uncooperative royal advisors, remove Elizabeth, and crown Mary. Spain and France had promised aid. A royal army of 26,000 men was sent north. By December 20, the uprising collapsed. Northumberland and Westmorland fled into Scotland. Between 600 and 750 commoners were subsequently hanged. Spared their lives, 200 of the gentry were deprived of their estates.
Next Month: Elizabeth pretends to entertain marriage to impede Philip’s objectives, English sea captains raid Spanish treasure ships, and daring adventurers look to colonize in North America.
Sources Cited:
Weir, Alison. Elizabeth the Queen. London: Vintage Books, 1998. Print.
During her half-brother Edward’s six year reign (1547-1553) the Anglican Church underwent substantial Protestant reform. Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon’s only child, Mary, succeeded Edward in 1553. She was a resolute Catholic. Dubbed “Bloody Mary,” she married Prince Philip of Spain in 1554 and persecuted Protestants severely. Philip remained in England during Mary’s phantom pregnancy. When it became clear that she was not with child, he left England to wage war against his arch enemy France. He became King of Spain in 1556. Two years later Mary died. For 47 years Philip would be Elizabeth’s most dangerous enemy.
Philip II was Catholicism’s staunchest champion. Whether it be accomplished by marriage, assassination, or military conquest, he was determined that England would again be a Catholic nation. Elizabeth parried him adroitly. Their conflict reached its climax in 1588 when Philip sent his great armada of war ships into the English Channel.
For more than a decade Elizabeth tried not to provoke him. Her treatment of English Catholics, although restrictive, was not oppressive. Early on, her primary advisors, believing that no woman should rule a nation independently, pressured her to marry a Catholic prince. They feared dissention, chaos, and foreign aggression. They were adamant that she end all dispute about who should be her successor. The birth of a child fathered by a foreign prince would settle it. Elizabeth used their persuasions to her own advantage. Philip offered to marry her in 1559. He would return England to Papal authority and he would protect Spain’s commercial interests in the Netherlands by allying Spain with England. Elizabeth rejected his proposal. He sought then to persuade her to marry his cousin, Archduke Charles of Austria. Interpreting Elizabeth’s conduct, Philip’s ambassador ventured that although she had “never set her heart upon, nor wished to marry anyone in the world” there was yet hope. “She was but human and not insensible to human emotions and impulses.” She appeared to be amenable, but she harbored reservations. She would rather be a nun than marry “on the faith of portrait painters.” She “had heard rumours that Charles had an abnormally large head: she dared not risk accepting a deformed husband” (Weir 65). Charles would have to come to England to be inspected. The Holy Roman Emperor (Charles’s father) vetoed her stipulation, as Elizabeth knew he would. Seemingly indecisive, she prolonged marriage negotiations until it became obvious to the Austrians and Philip that she would not comply.
Elizabeth understood that Philip needed her now as his ally in his dealings with France. He would be willing to overlook temporarily the fact that she was Protestant if she provided him assistance. England had long ago earned France’s enmity. Henry VIII had invaded France. Henry II, the current French king, believed that the English annulment of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon’s marriage had been illegal. Elizabeth was, therefore, a bastard, not entitled to rule. The legitimate English queen was Mary, Queen of Scots. This was because Margaret, Henry VIII’s older sister, had been Mary’s grandmother. Margaret and her husband, King James IV of Scotland, had produced Mary’s father, James V. Mary’s mother was the French noblewoman Mary of the powerful House of Guise. James V had died days after Mary’s birth. Mary had been raised in France by the Guise family while Catholic regents had ruled Scotland. Not yet 16, Mary had married Henry II’s son Francis, the French Dauphin in 1558, the same year Elizabeth had become Queen.
An unexpected torrent of events changed Europe’s political landscape in 1559. Philip married Elisabeth of Valois, Henry II’s daughter. Henry II died from a jousting accident. Mary’s husband Francis became king. France and Spain signed a peace treaty. England and France signed a peace settlement. Francis II, the new King of France, influenced by Mary’s mother, his Guise uncles, and his own mother, Catherine de Medici, remained bellicose. Francis boasted that he would have himself declared King of England. Elizabeth fired back: “I will take a husband who will give the King of France some trouble, and do him more harm than he expects” (Weir 75).
Behind her bravado was alarm. Mary of Guise was now regent of Scotland; French troops were stationed there; Elizabeth feared a two-prong attack. She did not foresee that Francis II and Mary of Guise would both die the following year (1560), that Protestant lords would gain the upper hand in Scotland, that the Treaty of Edinburgh would remove French soldiers from Scotland, and that religious wars between Catholics and Huguenots in France were about to tear France apart.
With the French threat diminished, Mary, Queen of Scots, now became the focal point of Elizabeth’s concern. Mary’s mother-in-law, Catherine de Medici, the Queen Regent of France, sent Mary back to Scotland in August 1561. Eighteen years old, Mary needed a new husband. Elizabeth was concerned that Mary might marry a prince from one of the royal houses of Spain, Austria, or France. That would place the Catholic threat right back at her back doorstep. Scotland could be used as a springboard for an invasion of England. Elizabeth wanted Mary’s husband to be Robert Dudley, Elizabeth’s long-time Protestant friend and advisor (and presumed lover). Philip II approved. Dudley and Mary did not. Dudley wanted to be Elizabeth’s husband and King Regent. Mary believed that Dudley was beneath her. In 1565 she married the British subject Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, a descendent of Henry VIII’s sister Margaret from her second marriage.
No longer needing Elizabeth as an ally, Philip now looked upon Mary as the means to return England to Catholicism. Mary’s minimal demand had been that Elizabeth declare her to be next in line to the English throne. Her lineage and her husband’s lineage traced back separately to Henry VIII’s older sister. But, quickly, Mary all but destroyed her chances of a peaceful ascendency. Unable to control her passions, much to Philip’s horror, she indulged in love affairs that led to two murders – that of her secretary/lover in 1566 and of Darnley in 1567 – murders in which many of her subjects believed she was complicit. Fearful that she might be tried for conspiracy to commit murder, she abdicated her throne July 24, 1567. Her year old son -- Elizabeth’s eventual successor -- was crowned James VI of Scotland. Protestant lords placed Mary in custody in Lochleven. She escaped May 2, 1568. The 6,000 man army raised to defend her was defeated eleven days later. She fled into England May 26.
These events placed Elizabeth in a most precarious position. Unless Mary was cleared of the charges of conspiring to murder Darnley, Elizabeth could not receive her. Sending her back to Scotland would mean her death. Sending Mary to France or Spain would encourage those countries all the more to attempt to depose her. Philip’s large army lay close by in the Netherlands, where it had been quashing Huguenot rebellion. Allowing Mary to be at liberty in England as a private citizen would inspire Catholic malcontents to rally to her cause. Elizabeth decided to keep Mary in custody as an “honorable guest.” Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s ministers would create a tribunal. The tribunal would investigate the conspiracy charges declared against Mary. It would then determine her innocence or guilt.
The inquiry began October 4. Letters were produced by the prosecution that clearly implicated Mary. Her defenders claimed that the letters were forgeries. The tribunal commissioners declared them authentic but were divided about how they should proceed. Elizabeth would not allow them to declare Mary innocent, aware of the strength of adverse public opinion against Mary. She was cognizant also that Catholic subjects could begin to view Mary as their champion. Worst of all, Mary wanted Elizabeth’s crown now. She had written the Queen of Spain that with Philip’s help she would “make ours the reigning religion” in England (Weir 199). In January 1569 the commissioners declared that nothing had been proved -- that, in effect, Mary was neither guilty nor innocent. Elizabeth placed Mary in the custody of George Talbot, Sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, at whose residence she would remain for most of the next 15 years.
There still remained the issue of Elizabeth’s eventual successor. Would Elizabeth in fact marry and give birth? If not, would she actually name her successor? And how could she continue to thwart Philip II? At the end of June 1565 she had rejected the marriage proposal of the fourteen-year-old King Charles IX of France. Several of her advisors had then revived their efforts to convince her to marry Charles, the Austrian Archduke. Elizabeth made conditions that the Holy Roman Emperor would not accept. Foremost, Charles would not renounce his faith. But the Emperor was willing to compromise. If Elizabeth would allow Charles to attend mass in private, he would publicly accompany her to Anglican services. If this concession was agreeable, he would marry Elizabeth at once. Elizabeth instructed her emissary, Lord Sussex, to inform the Emperor that her conscience and her policy of religious uniformity would not allow her to permit Charles to practice his religion in private. She knew that attitudes in her country about religion had hardened and that her acceptance of this compromise would invite controversy, quite possibly rebellion, perhaps even civil war. “She wished to make clear to her subjects that she would do nothing to forfeit their love and loyalty, and that she would never allow the laws of her country to be broken, even by her husband” (Weir 192-193).
Then there was the difficulty of Protestant rebellion in the northern provinces of the Netherlands and the presence there of Philip’s soldiers. Catholic churches had been desecrated. Imperial officials had been attacked. Philip had sent to the provinces the Duke of Alva and 50,000 soldiers. The rebellion had been crushed, but the army had remained, too close to England for Elizabeth’s ease of mind. She sympathized with the rebels, but she could not send them assistance for fear of Spanish retaliation. It was at this time that Mary abdicated her throne, escaped her imprisonment in Scotland, and fled to England.
In 1569 Elizabeth witnessed just how serious was the threat that she could be deposed. Catholic lords in northern England – led by the Earls Northumberland and Westmorland -- had conceived a plan to foment rebellion, murder royal officials, liberate Mary, whom they had been in contact, replace uncooperative royal advisors, remove Elizabeth, and crown Mary. Spain and France had promised aid. A royal army of 26,000 men was sent north. By December 20, the uprising collapsed. Northumberland and Westmorland fled into Scotland. Between 600 and 750 commoners were subsequently hanged. Spared their lives, 200 of the gentry were deprived of their estates.
Next Month: Elizabeth pretends to entertain marriage to impede Philip’s objectives, English sea captains raid Spanish treasure ships, and daring adventurers look to colonize in North America.
Sources Cited:
Weir, Alison. Elizabeth the Queen. London: Vintage Books, 1998. Print.
Elizabeth and Drake -- Piracy on the High Seas
Francis Drake returned to England September 26, 1580, dropping anchor at Southampton after nearly a three year absence circling the globe. Disembarking, he asked if Queen Elizabeth were still alive. He needed her protection. Informed that she was alive and well, he might then have recalled their meeting prior to his departure December 14, 1577. She had said: “‘So it is that I would be revenged on the King of Spain for divers injuries that I have received.’ Drake answered that the most effective way to do this would be to prey on Philip’s ships and settlements in the Indies, with which Elizabeth wholeheartedly agreed” (Weir 309).
Preying on Spanish shipping and settlements he had, seizing 800,000 pounds worth of treasure. Spain demanded that the entirety of it be returned, along with Drake’s head. Instead, Elizabeth honored him. Relating his adventures, he entertained her for six hours. He gave her a crown set with five huge emeralds, which she would wear on New Years Day 1581. She took 160,000 pounds of his booty. Moored on the Thames River, the Golden Hind was exhibited to the public as a memorial of his service. She would knight him aboard his ship April 5, 1581. In Madrid King Philip was planning his military and naval conquest of England.
What had transpired on the high seas previous to Drake’s triumphant return that had incited England and Spain to expect war?
We must begin with the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed by Spain and Portugal in 1494 and, thereafter, sanctioned by the Pope. Its purpose was to settle disputes between the two countries as to which area in the recently discovered New World each was entitled to claim ownership. A horizontal line was agreed upon that divided the globe in half. Spain received ownership of most of North and South America. Portugal received Africa and what today is Brazil. France, England, the Netherlands and lesser nations were forbidden to establish settlements there or engage in commerce.
Two decades later the Spanish Caribbean and Portuguese Brazil were in need of substantial numbers of slaves. Cash crops -- sugar and tobacco -- which had become highly valued in Europe, had to be cultivated. Having access to West Africa, the Portuguese began supplying the necessary labor: seizing Africans, transporting them across the Atlantic, selling them in Spain’s West Indies. Covetous of the profit that they might acquire, enterprising foreign merchants became illegal slave traders. Rather quickly, Spain and Portugal made their activities too risky to be gainful. Meanwhile, Spain had been extracting immense mineral wealth from the lands it had taken from the Mayan, Aztec, and Inca people. Its galleons were transporting back to Spain colossal fortunes in gold and silver. Accordingly, French, Dutch, and English sea adventurers engaged in piracy, selecting poorly protected treasure ships to seize and weakly defended Caribbean depot settlements to plunder.
England’s conflict with Spain and Portugal was exacerbated by the exploits of John Hawkins, born into a seafaring family and related to other daring seafarers out of Devonshire. In 1562 and again in 1564, he sailed to the Guinea coast, robbed Portuguese slavers of their chattel, and sold his stolen cargo to agents of plantation owners in the West Indies. Not until September 1569 was Hawkins made to suffer.
He had left Plymouth Harbor in 1568 with a squadron of five ships both to plunder and to trade. Nearly a year later (September 15, 1569) he anchored his ships in the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulúa to make repairs and resupply before sailing home. While his men were reprovisioning his ships – Hawkins had made a truce with the port’s commander -- a Spanish escort fleet commanded by Don Francisco Luján arrived in the port. Luján launched a swift attack that caused Hawkins to lose 4 ships, 500 men, and nearly all of the year’s ill-begotten loot. Only two small ships (a sixth ship, a Portuguese caravel had been seized near the coast of Ghana and put to use) -- the Judith, commanded by a young Francis Drake, and the Minion, carrying Hawkins -- escaped. These ships were dangerously overcrowded and vastly short of food supplies. Hawkins abandoned 110 crewmen on what is now the coastline of Texas. Most of the abandoned surrendered to Spanish authorities, “were burned at the stake or made galley slaves for life” (Miller 145). Drake reached Plymouth January 20, 1569. Hawkins’s Minion limped into a Cornwall harbor days afterward.
“Along the quay, onlookers gasp at the sight of the grisly crew. Pale, skeletal faces, bony hands clawing at proffered food. Here they are: fifteen men, all that remain of John Hawkins’s squadron” (Miller 145). From this time forward, English soldiers and sea-farers craved war. Queen Elizabeth did not. Fearing that Spain might declare war and her country was too weak to defend itself, Elizabeth ceased giving even marginal consent to slave smuggling and acts of piracy.
The Netherlands had exploded in rebellion in 1568. Seven states had declared themselves free. There were riots. “In Antwerp, a mob descended upon the Cathedral of the Virgin and desecrated more than seventy alters: smashing the organ with axes, trampling holy waters underfoot, toppling a giant crucifix by pulling it down with ropes and chopping it into bits” (Miller 146). King Philip sent his top military commander, the Duke of Alva, to restore order. Martial law was declared in Brussels. Businesses were shut down. “Ports and exits from the country are sealed and the Inquisition swings into action. February 16, 1568. The entire population of the Netherlands is condemned to death. … Incapable of carrying out the full sentence, Alva creates a Council for Disturbances to determine who shall die” (Miller 146-147).
In December Philip borrowed huge sums of money – 400,000 pounds -- from Genoese bankers to finance his suppression of the Dutch rebellion. Vessels carrying the money, entering the English Channel, chased by French Huguenots, were forced to seek refuge in English ports. News of the decimation of Hawkins’s fleet and loss of crew members had filtered into London. Elizabeth deposited the borrowed sums in the mint at the Tower of London. Retaliating, Alva seized English goods and imprisoned Englishmen throughout the Netherlands. Elizabeth, in turn, impounded Spanish ships. Spain, thereupon, imposed an embargo, forbidding oil, alum, sugar, spices or such other commodities to enter her country. English merchants were arrested and given to the Inquisition. Hatred between England and Spain was never more intense. Philip, however, decided not to declare war. “His priority was to bring his Dutch subjects to heel before entering into any overt hostility with England” (Weir 202).
Privately financed English expeditionary fleets preyed on Spanish possessions throughout the Caribbean and Atlantic well into the 1570s. While the Queen was engaged at keeping Philip at bay by contemplating marriage with the Duke of Alencon (France’s King Charles IX’s younger brother), Francis Drake embarked on an ambitious raid upon Spain’s silver deposits at Nombre de Dios on the Isthmus of Darien, Panama, in 1572. “With the assistance of a local people known as the Cimarrones, the ‘wild ones,’ mostly slaves escaped from Spanish mines, Drake attacks. Victory is complete; the loot incredible. The ships, groaning with treasure, can carry home only a small portion. In desperation, the men discard the silver, cramming the vessels only with gold” (Miller 151). Drake arrived in Plymouth Harbor August 9, 1573. Great celebration ensued. “But beyond Plymouth, Drake received no accolades, for England and Spain are on the verge of a détente” (Miller 151).
On April 12, 1576, Humphrey Gilbert, who had made his name in Ireland imposing English rule, published “A Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to Cataia.” His publication was supported by influential London intellectuals: Walter Raleigh (Humphrey’s half-brother), the Richard Hakluyts, the historian William Camden, and Dr. John Dee (Elizabeth’s astrologer and England’s most versatile scientist). Members of the scientific circle in and about London declared in writing their support of Gilbert’s idea that encompassed both colonization and the discovery of a passageway to China north of Spain’s sphere of control. Martin Frobisher’s three voyages to Baffin Island 1576, 1577, and 1578 (See blog entries June 1, July 1, and August 1, 2013) resulted.
Encouraged by Dr. Dee, on November 6, 1577, Gilbert submitted to Elizabeth his “A Discourse How Her Majesty May Meet with and Annoy the King of Spain.” The idea was to strike directly at Spain’s sea forces by direct attack or by the pretense of letters patent to North American lands. He proposed a Bermudan base from which English ships could attack Spanish sea routes. Bermuda was deemed too visible. A hidden base on the North American coast was considered more sensible.
On December 13, 1577, with Elizabeth’s blessing, Francis Drake with five ships and 164 men left Plymouth Harbor for the coast of Africa, the first leg of what would be his circumnavigation of the world.
In 1578 Gilbert received from Elizabeth a six-year letters patent to sail to the New World to establish a colony. He was instructed not to attack Spanish forces or ships. Due mostly to sickness, poor provisioning, disobedience of crews, and bad weather, most of his ships failed to leave England. One ship, commanded by Walter Raleigh, did leave and spent six months sailing off the coast of Africa pirating.
In February 1580 Spain invaded Portugal. That nation’s King Henry had died. Its people had selected Henry’s nephew Don Antonio to succeed him. The Duke of Alva conquered all of Portugal in 70 days. Don Antonio fled to England to solicit Elizabeth’s support. Drake returned in triumph September 26. On April 4, 1581, Elizabeth dined with him on board the Golden Hind. Publicly defying the King of Spain, she knighted her favorite sea adventurer. She had brought with her the French commissioners yet negotiating her marriage to the Duke of Anjou (formerly the Duke of Alencon). “When Drake escorted her around the ship, telling him that King Philip had demanded he be put to death, she produced a sword, joking that she would use it ‘to strike off his head,’ whilst teasingly wielding it in the air. Because Elizabeth wished to emphasize to King Philip her defensive alliance with France, she turned to one of Anjou’s envoys, … and, handing over the sword, asked him to perform the dubbing ceremony. Thus it was that the short, stocky adventurer [Drake] found himself kneeling on the deck before a Frenchman, while the Queen looked on, beaming approval” (Weir 336-337).
Sources Cited:
Miller, Lee. Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2001. Print.
Weir, Alison. Elizabeth the Queen. London: Vintage Books, 1998. Print.
Preying on Spanish shipping and settlements he had, seizing 800,000 pounds worth of treasure. Spain demanded that the entirety of it be returned, along with Drake’s head. Instead, Elizabeth honored him. Relating his adventures, he entertained her for six hours. He gave her a crown set with five huge emeralds, which she would wear on New Years Day 1581. She took 160,000 pounds of his booty. Moored on the Thames River, the Golden Hind was exhibited to the public as a memorial of his service. She would knight him aboard his ship April 5, 1581. In Madrid King Philip was planning his military and naval conquest of England.
What had transpired on the high seas previous to Drake’s triumphant return that had incited England and Spain to expect war?
We must begin with the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed by Spain and Portugal in 1494 and, thereafter, sanctioned by the Pope. Its purpose was to settle disputes between the two countries as to which area in the recently discovered New World each was entitled to claim ownership. A horizontal line was agreed upon that divided the globe in half. Spain received ownership of most of North and South America. Portugal received Africa and what today is Brazil. France, England, the Netherlands and lesser nations were forbidden to establish settlements there or engage in commerce.
Two decades later the Spanish Caribbean and Portuguese Brazil were in need of substantial numbers of slaves. Cash crops -- sugar and tobacco -- which had become highly valued in Europe, had to be cultivated. Having access to West Africa, the Portuguese began supplying the necessary labor: seizing Africans, transporting them across the Atlantic, selling them in Spain’s West Indies. Covetous of the profit that they might acquire, enterprising foreign merchants became illegal slave traders. Rather quickly, Spain and Portugal made their activities too risky to be gainful. Meanwhile, Spain had been extracting immense mineral wealth from the lands it had taken from the Mayan, Aztec, and Inca people. Its galleons were transporting back to Spain colossal fortunes in gold and silver. Accordingly, French, Dutch, and English sea adventurers engaged in piracy, selecting poorly protected treasure ships to seize and weakly defended Caribbean depot settlements to plunder.
England’s conflict with Spain and Portugal was exacerbated by the exploits of John Hawkins, born into a seafaring family and related to other daring seafarers out of Devonshire. In 1562 and again in 1564, he sailed to the Guinea coast, robbed Portuguese slavers of their chattel, and sold his stolen cargo to agents of plantation owners in the West Indies. Not until September 1569 was Hawkins made to suffer.
He had left Plymouth Harbor in 1568 with a squadron of five ships both to plunder and to trade. Nearly a year later (September 15, 1569) he anchored his ships in the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulúa to make repairs and resupply before sailing home. While his men were reprovisioning his ships – Hawkins had made a truce with the port’s commander -- a Spanish escort fleet commanded by Don Francisco Luján arrived in the port. Luján launched a swift attack that caused Hawkins to lose 4 ships, 500 men, and nearly all of the year’s ill-begotten loot. Only two small ships (a sixth ship, a Portuguese caravel had been seized near the coast of Ghana and put to use) -- the Judith, commanded by a young Francis Drake, and the Minion, carrying Hawkins -- escaped. These ships were dangerously overcrowded and vastly short of food supplies. Hawkins abandoned 110 crewmen on what is now the coastline of Texas. Most of the abandoned surrendered to Spanish authorities, “were burned at the stake or made galley slaves for life” (Miller 145). Drake reached Plymouth January 20, 1569. Hawkins’s Minion limped into a Cornwall harbor days afterward.
“Along the quay, onlookers gasp at the sight of the grisly crew. Pale, skeletal faces, bony hands clawing at proffered food. Here they are: fifteen men, all that remain of John Hawkins’s squadron” (Miller 145). From this time forward, English soldiers and sea-farers craved war. Queen Elizabeth did not. Fearing that Spain might declare war and her country was too weak to defend itself, Elizabeth ceased giving even marginal consent to slave smuggling and acts of piracy.
The Netherlands had exploded in rebellion in 1568. Seven states had declared themselves free. There were riots. “In Antwerp, a mob descended upon the Cathedral of the Virgin and desecrated more than seventy alters: smashing the organ with axes, trampling holy waters underfoot, toppling a giant crucifix by pulling it down with ropes and chopping it into bits” (Miller 146). King Philip sent his top military commander, the Duke of Alva, to restore order. Martial law was declared in Brussels. Businesses were shut down. “Ports and exits from the country are sealed and the Inquisition swings into action. February 16, 1568. The entire population of the Netherlands is condemned to death. … Incapable of carrying out the full sentence, Alva creates a Council for Disturbances to determine who shall die” (Miller 146-147).
In December Philip borrowed huge sums of money – 400,000 pounds -- from Genoese bankers to finance his suppression of the Dutch rebellion. Vessels carrying the money, entering the English Channel, chased by French Huguenots, were forced to seek refuge in English ports. News of the decimation of Hawkins’s fleet and loss of crew members had filtered into London. Elizabeth deposited the borrowed sums in the mint at the Tower of London. Retaliating, Alva seized English goods and imprisoned Englishmen throughout the Netherlands. Elizabeth, in turn, impounded Spanish ships. Spain, thereupon, imposed an embargo, forbidding oil, alum, sugar, spices or such other commodities to enter her country. English merchants were arrested and given to the Inquisition. Hatred between England and Spain was never more intense. Philip, however, decided not to declare war. “His priority was to bring his Dutch subjects to heel before entering into any overt hostility with England” (Weir 202).
Privately financed English expeditionary fleets preyed on Spanish possessions throughout the Caribbean and Atlantic well into the 1570s. While the Queen was engaged at keeping Philip at bay by contemplating marriage with the Duke of Alencon (France’s King Charles IX’s younger brother), Francis Drake embarked on an ambitious raid upon Spain’s silver deposits at Nombre de Dios on the Isthmus of Darien, Panama, in 1572. “With the assistance of a local people known as the Cimarrones, the ‘wild ones,’ mostly slaves escaped from Spanish mines, Drake attacks. Victory is complete; the loot incredible. The ships, groaning with treasure, can carry home only a small portion. In desperation, the men discard the silver, cramming the vessels only with gold” (Miller 151). Drake arrived in Plymouth Harbor August 9, 1573. Great celebration ensued. “But beyond Plymouth, Drake received no accolades, for England and Spain are on the verge of a détente” (Miller 151).
On April 12, 1576, Humphrey Gilbert, who had made his name in Ireland imposing English rule, published “A Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to Cataia.” His publication was supported by influential London intellectuals: Walter Raleigh (Humphrey’s half-brother), the Richard Hakluyts, the historian William Camden, and Dr. John Dee (Elizabeth’s astrologer and England’s most versatile scientist). Members of the scientific circle in and about London declared in writing their support of Gilbert’s idea that encompassed both colonization and the discovery of a passageway to China north of Spain’s sphere of control. Martin Frobisher’s three voyages to Baffin Island 1576, 1577, and 1578 (See blog entries June 1, July 1, and August 1, 2013) resulted.
Encouraged by Dr. Dee, on November 6, 1577, Gilbert submitted to Elizabeth his “A Discourse How Her Majesty May Meet with and Annoy the King of Spain.” The idea was to strike directly at Spain’s sea forces by direct attack or by the pretense of letters patent to North American lands. He proposed a Bermudan base from which English ships could attack Spanish sea routes. Bermuda was deemed too visible. A hidden base on the North American coast was considered more sensible.
On December 13, 1577, with Elizabeth’s blessing, Francis Drake with five ships and 164 men left Plymouth Harbor for the coast of Africa, the first leg of what would be his circumnavigation of the world.
In 1578 Gilbert received from Elizabeth a six-year letters patent to sail to the New World to establish a colony. He was instructed not to attack Spanish forces or ships. Due mostly to sickness, poor provisioning, disobedience of crews, and bad weather, most of his ships failed to leave England. One ship, commanded by Walter Raleigh, did leave and spent six months sailing off the coast of Africa pirating.
In February 1580 Spain invaded Portugal. That nation’s King Henry had died. Its people had selected Henry’s nephew Don Antonio to succeed him. The Duke of Alva conquered all of Portugal in 70 days. Don Antonio fled to England to solicit Elizabeth’s support. Drake returned in triumph September 26. On April 4, 1581, Elizabeth dined with him on board the Golden Hind. Publicly defying the King of Spain, she knighted her favorite sea adventurer. She had brought with her the French commissioners yet negotiating her marriage to the Duke of Anjou (formerly the Duke of Alencon). “When Drake escorted her around the ship, telling him that King Philip had demanded he be put to death, she produced a sword, joking that she would use it ‘to strike off his head,’ whilst teasingly wielding it in the air. Because Elizabeth wished to emphasize to King Philip her defensive alliance with France, she turned to one of Anjou’s envoys, … and, handing over the sword, asked him to perform the dubbing ceremony. Thus it was that the short, stocky adventurer [Drake] found himself kneeling on the deck before a Frenchman, while the Queen looked on, beaming approval” (Weir 336-337).
Sources Cited:
Miller, Lee. Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2001. Print.
Weir, Alison. Elizabeth the Queen. London: Vintage Books, 1998. Print.
Mary Stuart Beheaded
It is important to know how dire Queen Elizabeth’s circumstances were at home and abroad while Walter Raleigh pursued his intention to establish an English colony in North America. We saw in last month’s blog that in 1584 he had sent Captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe to America to locate land suitable to establish a base for privateers to attack Spanish treasure ships. The location had to be rich in natural resources and its native inhabitants needed to be cooperative. Amadas and Barlowe returned to England in mid-September satisfied that they had found such a place.
They found Queen Elizabeth, England’s leaders, and the nation’s citizenry all greatly apprehensive about the safety of the country. During the two captains’ absence, France’s Duke of Anjou (presumed by many to be Queen Elizabeth’s future husband) had died and William of Orange, leader of the Protestant provinces of the Netherlands, had been assassinated. Philip II of Spain seemed poised to invade England. Additionally, Mary Stuart’s existence continued to be a threat to Elizabeth’s life.
At the end of December 1584 Dr. William Parry was arrested for his aborted attempt to assassinate the Queen. Parry, working as a spy for Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s most senior advisor, had been assigned by Burghley to infiltrate papist circles. To reward him for his services, Elizabeth had awarded Parry a pension. He confronted her one day in her garden at Richmond palace while she was taking the air. Overcome by “the majesty of her presence, in which he saw the image of her father,” Parry could not “suffer his hand to execute that which he had resolved” (Weir 354). The Pope and Mary Stuart’s agent in Paris believed that Parry was acting on behalf of the deposed Queen of Scotland. Mary was moved to the forbidding fortress of Tutbury in January 1585 to be placed under the strict supervision of Sir Amyas Paulet, a staunch Puritan. In February 1585 Elizabeth authorized Parry’s hanging.
In 1585 Parliament passed a law that ordered all seminary priests to leave England within 40 days or suffer the penalty of high treason. A bond of association was signed by thousands of Protestant gentlemen who swore to take up arms and destroy Mary if she became involved in a plot against the Queen. Mary was showed the Bond. She denied any knowledge of a conspiracy, signed the Bond herself, but wrote King Philip two days later to urge him to press ahead with his planned invasion.
Richard Grenville, seven ships, and 600 men left Plymouth Harbor April 9 to establish a military colony on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Ralph Lane, a veteran of the Irish wars, was to be its governor. In May King Philip ordered all English ships in his ports seized. Trade with Spain and Portugal, vital to the English economy, ended. Queen Elizabeth “authorized the issue of letters of marquee, turning piracy into privateering, and English ships were dispatched to seize as many Spanish vessels and their cargoes as they could” (Quinn 85). Grenville returned to England October 18, having captured the Santa Maria de San Vicente, the value of its cargo exceeding the expense to investors of Grenville’s entire voyage.
In August 1585 Elizabeth extended to the Dutch, her sole ally, her protection, promising an army of 6,000 men and 1,000 horse. On September 17, she appointed Robert Dudley, the Duke of Leiscester, the army’s commander. Obeying her orders, Raleigh sent an armed squadron to Newfoundland, where it captured seventeen Spanish fishing vessels. The same month Elizabeth promoted Sir Francis Drake an admiral, “provided him with a fleet of twenty-two ships and 2000 men, and dispatched him on a voyage to capture several of Spain’s greatest naval bases in the Caribbean.” Drake sacked Santo Domingo, Havana, and Cartagena. “Her objectives … were to keep Philip fully occupied elsewhere, and at the same time demonstrate to him the might of England’s naval power” (Weir 357). In October she sent Philip a twenty-page declaration justifying her actions.
On December 8, Leicester and his stepson, Robert Devereau, the second Earl of Essex, left England for the Netherlands. (Essex would soon supplant Raleigh as Elizabeth’s Court favorite) Leicester “took with him a household of 170 persons, many of noble birth, as well as his wife, who insisted upon being attended by a bevy of ladies and taking a vast quantity of luggage, including furniture, clothing, and carriages” (Weir 358). The Dutch, disappointed that Elizabeth had declined to be their sovereign, treated Leicester as a visiting prince. Leicester accepted from them, without Elizabeth’s approval, the title of Supreme Governor of the Netherlands. Furious but upon her Privy Council’s advice, Elizabeth decided not to recall him. Leicester would prove to be an incompetent general, his gift of command being his ability to antagonize both his allies and his own men, many of whom subsequently deserted.
On Christmas Eve Mary Stuart was moved to a moated house at Chartley. She had complained to Elizabeth about her previous residence, at Tutbury. This provided Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s principal Secretary of State, to set a trap once and for all to eliminate Mary.
Walsingham turned a trainee priest, Gilbert Griffith, sent to England by Mary’s friends in Paris, to work for him. Walsingham instructed Griffith to pass on to Mary the many letters from abroad that were waiting for Mary at the French embassy. Any reply that she gave Griffith he would deliver to Walsingham, who would have it deciphered, copied, and resealed and afterward sent to its destination. Griffith informed Mary that he had organized a secret route whereby letters might be smuggled in and out of Chartley. Letters would be smuggled in and out inside a large beer barrel provided by the local brewer in Buxton. Gifford persuaded the brewer to convey Mary’s letters in a waterproof wooden box small enough to be slipped through the bung-hole of a barrel.
In March 1586 Philip wrote Pope Sixtus V to ask that he bless Philip’s planned invasion of England. He received the Pope’s blessing. “The planned invasion now assumed the nature of a crusade against the Infidel, a holy war that was to be fought on a grand scale” (Weir 363).
On May 20 Mary Stuart wrote to the Spanish ambassador to England Bernardino de Mendoza to inform him that she would cede her right to the succession of the English crown to Philip. The Spanish king told the Pope that he had no interest in receiving it but would transfer any claim to his daughter, the Infanta Isbella Clara Eugenia.
In late May, Gilbert Griffith gave Walsingham two other letters that Mary Stuart had smuggled out to him. One of them assured Mendoza that she supported Philip’s planned invasion. The second letter was sent to Charles Paget, an English nobleman, a staunch Roman Catholic, and a correspondent of Mary’s living in France. The letter asked Paget to remind Philip of the need for urgency in invading England. In a return letter Paget told Mary that a priest, John Ballard, had arrived in England from France to orchestrate a Catholic rebellion against Elizabeth.
Meanwhile, Walter Raleigh’s colony at Roanoke Island under Ralph Lane’s governorship was failing. A drought, hostile relations with the local natives, the failure of supply ships to arrive from England, a dearth of food supply: all contributed to Lane’s desperation. He was rescued from starvation unexpectedly by Francis Drake, sailing north from the Caribbean on the whim of adding to Lane’s fort armament that he had taken from the Spaniards. A ferocious storm convinced Lane to load his entire colony onto Drake’s ships. The fleet left June 19. It reached England July 27.
While Lane and Drake were considering Lane’s options at Roanoke, John Ballard, watched closely by Walsingham’s agents, was seen visiting Anthony Babington, a rich twenty-five year old Catholic gentleman of Dethick. Ballard and Babington were overheard discussing Philip’s projected invasion and Elizabeth’s murder. The deed was to take place either in her Presence Chamber, while she walked in the park, or while she rode in her coach. Babington would do the deed himself with the assistance of six of his friends, themselves idealistic young Catholics of gentle birth. On June 25 Mary wrote to Babington, who replied July 6. He outlined to her his conspiracy: his “six noble gentlemen” would dispatch the Queen; he would rescue Mary from Chartley; and with the help of the invading Spanish forces, she would become Queen.
On July 17 Walsingham was given Mary’s return letter to Babington. Written by her two secretaries from her notes, which she subsequently burned, the letter indicated that Mary endorsed Babington’s plan and Elizabeth’s murder. Walsingham had his forger had a postscript that asked for the names of Babington’s six gentlemen.
Much to Walter Raleigh’s surprise, Drake and the entire Roanoke colony arrived in Plymouth July 27. He had sent Grenville and a relief squadron off to Roanoke in April, the squadron arriving off the Outer Banks approximately two weeks after Drake and Lane’s departure.
While London was celebrating Drake’s boastful return – “In half a year … he has destroyed what Philip cannot rebuild in twenty, even with all his millions in gold” (Miller 160) – Walsingham pounced. John Ballard was arrested August 4 and put in the Tower of London. August 9 -- Mary Stuart’s jailor, Sir Aymas Paulet, confiscated Mary’s letters, jewelry, and money while she was hunting before arresting her on the moors. August 14 – Babington was located and taken to the Tower. Fearing torture and believing that being cooperative would earn him a pardon, four days later he confessed. September 20 -- Babington, Ballard, and five other conspirators were executed. They were hanged briefly, had their privates cut off and bowels taken out while alive and seeing, and then beheaded and quartered.
On October 11 a special court of 36 commissioners assembled to hear evidence against Mary Stuart, who refused to acknowledge its jurisdiction. During her trial, Mary denied all knowledge of the Babington Plot, declared that her crucial letter to Babington was a forgery, insisted that she had never sanctioned the murder of Elizabeth, and that all she had ever done was seek help to gain her freedom wherever she could find it. Parliament assembled October 29 to ratify the special court’s guilty verdict. It petitioned Elizabeth November 12 to authorize Mary’s execution.
Elizabeth could not act. “If she signed the death warrant, she would be setting a precedent for condemning an anointed queen to death, and would also be spilling the blood of her kinswoman. To do this would court the opprobrium of the whole world, and might provoke the Catholic powers to vengeful retribution. Yet if she showed mercy, Mary would remain the focus of Catholic plotting for the rest of her life to the great peril of Elizabeth and the kingdom. Elizabeth knew where her duty lay, but she did not want to be responsible for Mary’s death. For weeks she existed under the most profound stress which affected her judgment and brought her close to a breakdown” (Weir 375).
On February 1, 1587, Sir William Davison presented Elizabeth the death warrant to sign. She did so, but, according to what she insisted days later, she then commanded Davison not to disclose the fact. As Davison was about to leave the room, Elizabeth suggested that he might ask Mary’s jailor, Sir Amyas Paulet, to quietly do away with Mary. Elizabeth could claim that Mary had died of natural causes. Although horrified, Davison agreed to write to Paulet, who answered back that he could not in good conscience.
Acting apparently against her wishes, Davison took the death warrant to the acting Lord Chancellor, who attached to the warrant the Great Seal of England. When Elizabeth discovered that this had happened, she made Davison swear on his life not to let the warrant out of his hands until she had expressly authorized him to do so.
In an emergency meeting, Elizabeth’s ten councilors agreed to take the responsibility for Mary’s execution. Lord Burghley drafted an order to have the sentence carried out. Mary Stuart was decapitated February 8.
Elizabeth “erupted, not only in a torrent of weeping, but also in rage against those who had acted on her behalf and driven her to this. Her councilors and courtiers … quaked in fear at the terrible accusations that were hurled at them” (Weir 380). Walsingham fled to his country home and feigned illness. Leicester and Burghley were banished from the royal presence. Davison was arrested Feb. 14, tried in the Star Chamber, sentenced to a heavy fine, and imprisoned in the Tower.
By May, Elizabeth had begun to forgive. Burghley was allowed back to Court. Leicester was forgiven. Sir Christopher Hatton was sworn in as Lord Chancillor, and Walter Raleigh replaced him as Captain of the Guard. Paulet was appointed Chancillor of the Order of the Garter. Davison would remain in the Tower until after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
King Philip of Spain was poised to strike. He had ordered General Parma to subjugate as much of the Dutch Provinces as was possible to create a springboard for the invasion. Acting on Elizabeth’s orders, Francis Drake and 24 ships left Plymouth Harbor April 16, 1587, to attempt to cripple Philip’s armada of ships. When John White, authorized by Walter Raleigh to found a colony somewhere on the south shore of Chesapeake Bay, left Plymouth May 8 with 117 men, women, and children, nobody in England knew what Drake had accomplished, and nobody but the perpetrator and his agent knew that White’s venture would be sabotaged.
Sources cited:
Miller, Lee. Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2001. Print.
Quinn, David Beers. Set Fair for Roanoke. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1985. Print.
Weir, Alison. Elizabeth the Queen. London: Vintage Books, 1998. Print.
They found Queen Elizabeth, England’s leaders, and the nation’s citizenry all greatly apprehensive about the safety of the country. During the two captains’ absence, France’s Duke of Anjou (presumed by many to be Queen Elizabeth’s future husband) had died and William of Orange, leader of the Protestant provinces of the Netherlands, had been assassinated. Philip II of Spain seemed poised to invade England. Additionally, Mary Stuart’s existence continued to be a threat to Elizabeth’s life.
At the end of December 1584 Dr. William Parry was arrested for his aborted attempt to assassinate the Queen. Parry, working as a spy for Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s most senior advisor, had been assigned by Burghley to infiltrate papist circles. To reward him for his services, Elizabeth had awarded Parry a pension. He confronted her one day in her garden at Richmond palace while she was taking the air. Overcome by “the majesty of her presence, in which he saw the image of her father,” Parry could not “suffer his hand to execute that which he had resolved” (Weir 354). The Pope and Mary Stuart’s agent in Paris believed that Parry was acting on behalf of the deposed Queen of Scotland. Mary was moved to the forbidding fortress of Tutbury in January 1585 to be placed under the strict supervision of Sir Amyas Paulet, a staunch Puritan. In February 1585 Elizabeth authorized Parry’s hanging.
In 1585 Parliament passed a law that ordered all seminary priests to leave England within 40 days or suffer the penalty of high treason. A bond of association was signed by thousands of Protestant gentlemen who swore to take up arms and destroy Mary if she became involved in a plot against the Queen. Mary was showed the Bond. She denied any knowledge of a conspiracy, signed the Bond herself, but wrote King Philip two days later to urge him to press ahead with his planned invasion.
Richard Grenville, seven ships, and 600 men left Plymouth Harbor April 9 to establish a military colony on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Ralph Lane, a veteran of the Irish wars, was to be its governor. In May King Philip ordered all English ships in his ports seized. Trade with Spain and Portugal, vital to the English economy, ended. Queen Elizabeth “authorized the issue of letters of marquee, turning piracy into privateering, and English ships were dispatched to seize as many Spanish vessels and their cargoes as they could” (Quinn 85). Grenville returned to England October 18, having captured the Santa Maria de San Vicente, the value of its cargo exceeding the expense to investors of Grenville’s entire voyage.
In August 1585 Elizabeth extended to the Dutch, her sole ally, her protection, promising an army of 6,000 men and 1,000 horse. On September 17, she appointed Robert Dudley, the Duke of Leiscester, the army’s commander. Obeying her orders, Raleigh sent an armed squadron to Newfoundland, where it captured seventeen Spanish fishing vessels. The same month Elizabeth promoted Sir Francis Drake an admiral, “provided him with a fleet of twenty-two ships and 2000 men, and dispatched him on a voyage to capture several of Spain’s greatest naval bases in the Caribbean.” Drake sacked Santo Domingo, Havana, and Cartagena. “Her objectives … were to keep Philip fully occupied elsewhere, and at the same time demonstrate to him the might of England’s naval power” (Weir 357). In October she sent Philip a twenty-page declaration justifying her actions.
On December 8, Leicester and his stepson, Robert Devereau, the second Earl of Essex, left England for the Netherlands. (Essex would soon supplant Raleigh as Elizabeth’s Court favorite) Leicester “took with him a household of 170 persons, many of noble birth, as well as his wife, who insisted upon being attended by a bevy of ladies and taking a vast quantity of luggage, including furniture, clothing, and carriages” (Weir 358). The Dutch, disappointed that Elizabeth had declined to be their sovereign, treated Leicester as a visiting prince. Leicester accepted from them, without Elizabeth’s approval, the title of Supreme Governor of the Netherlands. Furious but upon her Privy Council’s advice, Elizabeth decided not to recall him. Leicester would prove to be an incompetent general, his gift of command being his ability to antagonize both his allies and his own men, many of whom subsequently deserted.
On Christmas Eve Mary Stuart was moved to a moated house at Chartley. She had complained to Elizabeth about her previous residence, at Tutbury. This provided Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s principal Secretary of State, to set a trap once and for all to eliminate Mary.
Walsingham turned a trainee priest, Gilbert Griffith, sent to England by Mary’s friends in Paris, to work for him. Walsingham instructed Griffith to pass on to Mary the many letters from abroad that were waiting for Mary at the French embassy. Any reply that she gave Griffith he would deliver to Walsingham, who would have it deciphered, copied, and resealed and afterward sent to its destination. Griffith informed Mary that he had organized a secret route whereby letters might be smuggled in and out of Chartley. Letters would be smuggled in and out inside a large beer barrel provided by the local brewer in Buxton. Gifford persuaded the brewer to convey Mary’s letters in a waterproof wooden box small enough to be slipped through the bung-hole of a barrel.
In March 1586 Philip wrote Pope Sixtus V to ask that he bless Philip’s planned invasion of England. He received the Pope’s blessing. “The planned invasion now assumed the nature of a crusade against the Infidel, a holy war that was to be fought on a grand scale” (Weir 363).
On May 20 Mary Stuart wrote to the Spanish ambassador to England Bernardino de Mendoza to inform him that she would cede her right to the succession of the English crown to Philip. The Spanish king told the Pope that he had no interest in receiving it but would transfer any claim to his daughter, the Infanta Isbella Clara Eugenia.
In late May, Gilbert Griffith gave Walsingham two other letters that Mary Stuart had smuggled out to him. One of them assured Mendoza that she supported Philip’s planned invasion. The second letter was sent to Charles Paget, an English nobleman, a staunch Roman Catholic, and a correspondent of Mary’s living in France. The letter asked Paget to remind Philip of the need for urgency in invading England. In a return letter Paget told Mary that a priest, John Ballard, had arrived in England from France to orchestrate a Catholic rebellion against Elizabeth.
Meanwhile, Walter Raleigh’s colony at Roanoke Island under Ralph Lane’s governorship was failing. A drought, hostile relations with the local natives, the failure of supply ships to arrive from England, a dearth of food supply: all contributed to Lane’s desperation. He was rescued from starvation unexpectedly by Francis Drake, sailing north from the Caribbean on the whim of adding to Lane’s fort armament that he had taken from the Spaniards. A ferocious storm convinced Lane to load his entire colony onto Drake’s ships. The fleet left June 19. It reached England July 27.
While Lane and Drake were considering Lane’s options at Roanoke, John Ballard, watched closely by Walsingham’s agents, was seen visiting Anthony Babington, a rich twenty-five year old Catholic gentleman of Dethick. Ballard and Babington were overheard discussing Philip’s projected invasion and Elizabeth’s murder. The deed was to take place either in her Presence Chamber, while she walked in the park, or while she rode in her coach. Babington would do the deed himself with the assistance of six of his friends, themselves idealistic young Catholics of gentle birth. On June 25 Mary wrote to Babington, who replied July 6. He outlined to her his conspiracy: his “six noble gentlemen” would dispatch the Queen; he would rescue Mary from Chartley; and with the help of the invading Spanish forces, she would become Queen.
On July 17 Walsingham was given Mary’s return letter to Babington. Written by her two secretaries from her notes, which she subsequently burned, the letter indicated that Mary endorsed Babington’s plan and Elizabeth’s murder. Walsingham had his forger had a postscript that asked for the names of Babington’s six gentlemen.
Much to Walter Raleigh’s surprise, Drake and the entire Roanoke colony arrived in Plymouth July 27. He had sent Grenville and a relief squadron off to Roanoke in April, the squadron arriving off the Outer Banks approximately two weeks after Drake and Lane’s departure.
While London was celebrating Drake’s boastful return – “In half a year … he has destroyed what Philip cannot rebuild in twenty, even with all his millions in gold” (Miller 160) – Walsingham pounced. John Ballard was arrested August 4 and put in the Tower of London. August 9 -- Mary Stuart’s jailor, Sir Aymas Paulet, confiscated Mary’s letters, jewelry, and money while she was hunting before arresting her on the moors. August 14 – Babington was located and taken to the Tower. Fearing torture and believing that being cooperative would earn him a pardon, four days later he confessed. September 20 -- Babington, Ballard, and five other conspirators were executed. They were hanged briefly, had their privates cut off and bowels taken out while alive and seeing, and then beheaded and quartered.
On October 11 a special court of 36 commissioners assembled to hear evidence against Mary Stuart, who refused to acknowledge its jurisdiction. During her trial, Mary denied all knowledge of the Babington Plot, declared that her crucial letter to Babington was a forgery, insisted that she had never sanctioned the murder of Elizabeth, and that all she had ever done was seek help to gain her freedom wherever she could find it. Parliament assembled October 29 to ratify the special court’s guilty verdict. It petitioned Elizabeth November 12 to authorize Mary’s execution.
Elizabeth could not act. “If she signed the death warrant, she would be setting a precedent for condemning an anointed queen to death, and would also be spilling the blood of her kinswoman. To do this would court the opprobrium of the whole world, and might provoke the Catholic powers to vengeful retribution. Yet if she showed mercy, Mary would remain the focus of Catholic plotting for the rest of her life to the great peril of Elizabeth and the kingdom. Elizabeth knew where her duty lay, but she did not want to be responsible for Mary’s death. For weeks she existed under the most profound stress which affected her judgment and brought her close to a breakdown” (Weir 375).
On February 1, 1587, Sir William Davison presented Elizabeth the death warrant to sign. She did so, but, according to what she insisted days later, she then commanded Davison not to disclose the fact. As Davison was about to leave the room, Elizabeth suggested that he might ask Mary’s jailor, Sir Amyas Paulet, to quietly do away with Mary. Elizabeth could claim that Mary had died of natural causes. Although horrified, Davison agreed to write to Paulet, who answered back that he could not in good conscience.
Acting apparently against her wishes, Davison took the death warrant to the acting Lord Chancellor, who attached to the warrant the Great Seal of England. When Elizabeth discovered that this had happened, she made Davison swear on his life not to let the warrant out of his hands until she had expressly authorized him to do so.
In an emergency meeting, Elizabeth’s ten councilors agreed to take the responsibility for Mary’s execution. Lord Burghley drafted an order to have the sentence carried out. Mary Stuart was decapitated February 8.
Elizabeth “erupted, not only in a torrent of weeping, but also in rage against those who had acted on her behalf and driven her to this. Her councilors and courtiers … quaked in fear at the terrible accusations that were hurled at them” (Weir 380). Walsingham fled to his country home and feigned illness. Leicester and Burghley were banished from the royal presence. Davison was arrested Feb. 14, tried in the Star Chamber, sentenced to a heavy fine, and imprisoned in the Tower.
By May, Elizabeth had begun to forgive. Burghley was allowed back to Court. Leicester was forgiven. Sir Christopher Hatton was sworn in as Lord Chancillor, and Walter Raleigh replaced him as Captain of the Guard. Paulet was appointed Chancillor of the Order of the Garter. Davison would remain in the Tower until after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
King Philip of Spain was poised to strike. He had ordered General Parma to subjugate as much of the Dutch Provinces as was possible to create a springboard for the invasion. Acting on Elizabeth’s orders, Francis Drake and 24 ships left Plymouth Harbor April 16, 1587, to attempt to cripple Philip’s armada of ships. When John White, authorized by Walter Raleigh to found a colony somewhere on the south shore of Chesapeake Bay, left Plymouth May 8 with 117 men, women, and children, nobody in England knew what Drake had accomplished, and nobody but the perpetrator and his agent knew that White’s venture would be sabotaged.
Sources cited:
Miller, Lee. Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2001. Print.
Quinn, David Beers. Set Fair for Roanoke. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1985. Print.
Weir, Alison. Elizabeth the Queen. London: Vintage Books, 1998. Print.
1587-1588: Philip II Defeated, John White Thwarted
King Philip II of Spain had reason to believe at the beginning of 1587 that his armada of war ships being constructed in the port of Cadiz and the port of Lisbon would be prepared to sail in June or July. They would travel to the Netherlands, upload on barges approximately 16,000 of the Duke of Parma’s soldiers, cross the English Channel, break through if not destroy opposing warships, and put ashore Parma’s troops, which would quickly vanquish all opposition, march to London, and depose the Queen. Elizabeth, her advisors, and every citizen of the realm knew his intentions. Desperate measures were required to defeat him.
Elizabeth began by providing Frances Drake four Royal Naval ships. A group of London merchants, looking to profit from the seizure of Spanish ships, armed an assortment of pinnaces and outfitted twenty merchantmen to accompany Drake. Drake’s motley fleet left Plymouth Harbor April 12. Seven days later, vacillating, Elizabeth sent Drake a message by ship instructing him not to initiate hostilities. Driven back to port by strong headwinds, the ship did not reach him. Drake’s attacks upon the shipping in Cadiz and Lisbon and assaults by raiding parties upon several forts along the Portuguese coast inflicted great damage. Over one hundred Spanish ships of various tonnage were destroyed or captured, including 37 ships burned in Cadiz Harbor. On June 8 Drake captured the Portuguese carrack Sao Filipe, laden with silk, spices, and gold valued at 108,000 pounds. Drake’s fleet returned to England July 6. Great celebrations ensued. In Madrid, Philip ordered the construction of a new armada.
While Drake was yet at sea, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, demonstrated again his incompetence as commander of English soldiers in the Netherlands. Returned to the United Provinces June 25 with 3,000 new troops and a fleet of warships, he alienated his Dutch allies with his imperious conduct and failed to check Parma’s advancement in the Protestant-occupied territory. Extremely displeased, Elizabeth recalled him November 10.
John White, artist-turned-governor, and 117 recruited settlers had left England May 8, nearly a month after Drake’s departure, intent upon establishing a colony on or near the southern shores of Chesapeake Bay. Walter Raleigh had instructed White to stop by Roanoke Island to pick up the 15 sailors that Richard Grenville had left there in late June 1586 after finding Governor Ralph Lane’s colony abandoned. Upon their arrival, White’s pilot, Simon Fernandez, ordered White and his settlers to disembark, claiming it was too late in the season to sail to the Chesapeake. White believed that Fernandez intended to use his ships to privateer. Historian Lee Miller believes that Fernandez was carrying out the orders of Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s chief secretary, Walsingham wanting the colonial venture to fail and, thereby, destroy Raleigh’s competing influence over the Queen.
Placed in great peril -- the previous Roanoke settlement’s governor Ralph Lane had alienated the local Algonquian tribe and murdered its leader -- White’s principal subordinates recognized that Raleigh had to be notified immediately of their whereabouts. They could not have ships sent by Raleigh intended for their benefit sail directly to the Chesapeake. Fernandez could not be trusted to deliver their message. It was agreed that White himself had to return to England on one of the expedition’s ships. He did so, arriving in Ireland October 16 after a harrowing crossing.
White found his countrymen extremely anxious. Philip II’s invasion plans had been foiled, but only temporarily. Substantial preparations to confront Philip’s forthcoming invasion remained to be accomplished. Raleigh promised to send a ship with needed supplies to Roanoke as soon as he was able. The following spring he would have his cousin Richard Grenville and a fleet of ships set sail out of Bideford, despite the Privy Council’s general stay on shipping from English ports. White’s colony would have to survive the winter at Roanoke before it could be relocated.
As Philip’s new armada was being built, Elizabeth was taking measures to defend her country. Harbors and land defenses were being strengthened. Eleven warships were being built and old warships refurbished. Arms and stores were being requisitioned. And, germane especially to John White’s situation, Walter Raleigh’s favored standing with the Queen declined.
Raleigh had been appointed Captain of the Queen’s guard in April 1587, succeeding Christopher Hatton, who had been appointed Lord Chancellor. It was an honorary position with no salary but with great prestige. He was expected to spend much time with her, among other duties serving her meals and delivering messages and performing errands. She had needed his presence to rally her from the deep depression she had suffered following Mary Stuart’s execution.
A handsome new face, however, had appeared at Court -- nineteen-year-old Robert Devereux, the Second Earl of Essex. Tall, dark-eyed, with auburn hair, elegant, intelligent, he was Leicester’s step-son. Essex had taken an immediate dislike of Raleigh, now well into his thirties. He was jealous of Raleigh’s literary accomplishments and envious of his overseas enterprises. Essex was of aristocrat, an ancestor of Edward III. Lord Burghley and his son Robert Cecil, two of Elizabeth’s key advisors, had encouraged a relationship between the young man and the Queen, believing he could best rejuvenate her from her depression. Playing cards frequently with him, she found him to be an exhilarating companion. Having a quick temper, Essex was given to passionate outbursts and tantrums. As time would demonstrate, he harbored great resentments. Elizabeth had allowed him a freedom of speech she had not Christopher Hatton or Raleigh. Raleigh’s enemies had watched gleefully as Essex had begun to supplant Raleigh as her favorite. In June 1587 she had made Essex her Master of the Horse, succeeding his step-father, the Earl of Leicester. After she had recalled Leicester in November, upon Leicester’s insistence, Elizabeth sent Essex and Leicester’s nephew, Sir Philip Sidney, to the Netherlands to replace him.
Raleigh’s assistance in helping Elizabeth prepare for Philip’s invasion would prove to be considerable. He had sold his ship, the Ark Raleigh, to the Queen for a modest 500 pounds. (It would be renamed the Ark Royal and be the flag ship of the Lord High Admiral, Charles Lord Howard) In November, while Essex and Sidney were being transported to the Netherlands and John White was pressing him yet for relief ships, Raleigh was appointed to Elizabeth’s Council of War. His specific duty was to levy troops and improve defenses in Southwest England. He would set up a system of beacons from Cornwall to the south coast to alert the early appearance of Philip’s fleet. 6,000 trained men would be held ready to march to Plymouth and another 8,000 to Falmouth if either port were attacked.
Winter passed. In March 1588, Grenville was poised with a fleet of ships at Bideford to sail to the Caribbean and, afterward, to Roanoke Island. Just before he was to lift anchor, the Privy Council ordered him to travel to Plymouth where he was to relinquish his ships to his long-time adversary, Francis Drake. Not one of the ships would be used months later against Philip’s Armada. Historian Lee Miller conjectures that Walsingham was responsible for this decision. “Yet ships did leave. … Specifically, the ships that are not allowed to sail are Raleigh’s” (Miller 194). White implored Raleigh for assistance. Raleigh was able to procure two small ships – the Row and the Brave -- unsuitable for naval engagement. “April 22, 1588. The boats leave the Devon coast. White rides in the Brave, captained by Arthur Facy. Fifteen colonists sail with him … If the weather is favorable, White can expect a two-month crossing, placing them on Roanoke at the end of June” (Miller 195). Instead, Facy and the Row engaged immediately in privateering. They encountered on May 6 a French vessel twice each of the English vessels’ sizes. The French ship’s crew attempted to board the Brave. White was wounded twice in the head -- by a sword and then by a pike -- and shot in the side of the buttock. The Brave surrendered and was looted. Released, the Brave and the badly battered Row limped back to England.
Raleigh was too busy to do anything more than commiserate. “There is no time now to think of any Roanoke rescue. … The kingdom’s troops are far too few; therefore Raleigh urges a radical plan of attack: hit the Spaniards by sea before they can land. The English navy is redesigned, the ships lowered to gain nimbleness and speed” (Miller 196). April 1588: “… Elizabeth ordered the refurbishment of twelve more ships and her government instituted a programme of intensive training for her fighting forces. Drake was in favour of sailing to Spain to sabotage Philip’s fleet, but she would not allow it, being concerned that her own ships would be either damaged or lost when she most needed them. Any confrontation at sea, she said, must take place within sight of the shores of England, in order to remind her sailors what they were fighting for” (Weir 388-389). Hoping yet that she could avert war, she dispatched Dr. Valentine Dale to meet with the Duke of Parma to negotiate a peace settlement. They met May 30, “the very day on which the Spanish Armada of 130 ships, manned by 30,000 men … set sail from Lisbon, bound for England” (Weir 389).
‘The progress of the Spanish fleet had been impeded by storms … As the chain of beacons flared, Elizabeth heard the news on the night of 22 July … A prayer of intercession, composed by the Queen, was read in churches” (Weir 389-390).
Philip’s Armada moved along the south coast headed for the Netherlands to upload Parma’s army. Waiting at Plymouth was the English fleet, 150 ships strong, its admiral Lord Howard of Effingham, assisted by the far more experienced Sir Francis Drake …
Effingham put out to sea after nightfall on the 19th. He skirmished briefly with the ships of the Armada off Eddystone, near Plymouth, on Sunday, July 21. Two days later near Portland, Dorset, he damaged severely several galleons. Two more were wrecked off the Isle of Wight July 25. “The English fleet continued to shadow the Armada as it sailed east, neatly avoiding any further engagements by sailing out of range whenever the galleons prepared for battle” (Weir 390).
The Armada anchored off Calais, where Parma and 16,000 troops waited. The English ships followed. At midnight on July 28 five “hell-burners” (fire ships), packed with wood and pitch, were sent amongst the galleons. The subsequent inferno, aided by high winds, caused great panic. The galleons scattered. Because of the high winds, the Spanish admiral was unable to regroup them into the Armada’s protective crescent formation.
“On 29 July, off Graylines … the two fleets engaged in what was to be the final battle. … The Spaniards lost eleven ships and 2000 men, and the English just fifty men. The action was only abandoned when both sides ran out of ammunition” (Weir 391).
On July 30 the wind changed. The Armada was forced northwards, off course, its galleons scattering. Effingham ordered his ships to chase them, but there was no need. “… the wind – the ‘Protestant’ wind, as people were now calling it … -- and terrible storms were bringing about more destruction than they could realistically have hoped to achieve themselves” (Weir 391).
Eventually, Effingham ended the chase. King Philip’s remaining ships, many of them broken, made their way dangerously around the coasts of Scotland, Ireland and Cornwall. Philip had suffered the worst naval defeat in his country’s history. He had lost two thirds of his men, “many dying stranded on remote beaches of wounds and sickness, or slaughtered in Ireland by the Lord Deputy’s men” (Weir 392). He had lost 44 ships. Many more were too damaged to be considered seaworthy. The English had lost only a hundred men and none of their ships. Yet Elizabeth was cautious. ‘This tyrannical, proud and brainsick attempt’ would be, she observed in a letter to James VI [of Scotland], ‘the beginning, though not the end, of the ruin of that king [Philip]’. The Spanish fleet might have been crippled, but there remained a very real threat from Parma and his army, who were poised to cross the Channel, and awaited only a favourable wind” (Weir 392).
Sources Cited:
Miller, Lee. Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2001. Print.
Weir, Alison. Elizabeth the Queen. London: Vintage Books, 1998. Print.
Elizabeth began by providing Frances Drake four Royal Naval ships. A group of London merchants, looking to profit from the seizure of Spanish ships, armed an assortment of pinnaces and outfitted twenty merchantmen to accompany Drake. Drake’s motley fleet left Plymouth Harbor April 12. Seven days later, vacillating, Elizabeth sent Drake a message by ship instructing him not to initiate hostilities. Driven back to port by strong headwinds, the ship did not reach him. Drake’s attacks upon the shipping in Cadiz and Lisbon and assaults by raiding parties upon several forts along the Portuguese coast inflicted great damage. Over one hundred Spanish ships of various tonnage were destroyed or captured, including 37 ships burned in Cadiz Harbor. On June 8 Drake captured the Portuguese carrack Sao Filipe, laden with silk, spices, and gold valued at 108,000 pounds. Drake’s fleet returned to England July 6. Great celebrations ensued. In Madrid, Philip ordered the construction of a new armada.
While Drake was yet at sea, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, demonstrated again his incompetence as commander of English soldiers in the Netherlands. Returned to the United Provinces June 25 with 3,000 new troops and a fleet of warships, he alienated his Dutch allies with his imperious conduct and failed to check Parma’s advancement in the Protestant-occupied territory. Extremely displeased, Elizabeth recalled him November 10.
John White, artist-turned-governor, and 117 recruited settlers had left England May 8, nearly a month after Drake’s departure, intent upon establishing a colony on or near the southern shores of Chesapeake Bay. Walter Raleigh had instructed White to stop by Roanoke Island to pick up the 15 sailors that Richard Grenville had left there in late June 1586 after finding Governor Ralph Lane’s colony abandoned. Upon their arrival, White’s pilot, Simon Fernandez, ordered White and his settlers to disembark, claiming it was too late in the season to sail to the Chesapeake. White believed that Fernandez intended to use his ships to privateer. Historian Lee Miller believes that Fernandez was carrying out the orders of Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s chief secretary, Walsingham wanting the colonial venture to fail and, thereby, destroy Raleigh’s competing influence over the Queen.
Placed in great peril -- the previous Roanoke settlement’s governor Ralph Lane had alienated the local Algonquian tribe and murdered its leader -- White’s principal subordinates recognized that Raleigh had to be notified immediately of their whereabouts. They could not have ships sent by Raleigh intended for their benefit sail directly to the Chesapeake. Fernandez could not be trusted to deliver their message. It was agreed that White himself had to return to England on one of the expedition’s ships. He did so, arriving in Ireland October 16 after a harrowing crossing.
White found his countrymen extremely anxious. Philip II’s invasion plans had been foiled, but only temporarily. Substantial preparations to confront Philip’s forthcoming invasion remained to be accomplished. Raleigh promised to send a ship with needed supplies to Roanoke as soon as he was able. The following spring he would have his cousin Richard Grenville and a fleet of ships set sail out of Bideford, despite the Privy Council’s general stay on shipping from English ports. White’s colony would have to survive the winter at Roanoke before it could be relocated.
As Philip’s new armada was being built, Elizabeth was taking measures to defend her country. Harbors and land defenses were being strengthened. Eleven warships were being built and old warships refurbished. Arms and stores were being requisitioned. And, germane especially to John White’s situation, Walter Raleigh’s favored standing with the Queen declined.
Raleigh had been appointed Captain of the Queen’s guard in April 1587, succeeding Christopher Hatton, who had been appointed Lord Chancellor. It was an honorary position with no salary but with great prestige. He was expected to spend much time with her, among other duties serving her meals and delivering messages and performing errands. She had needed his presence to rally her from the deep depression she had suffered following Mary Stuart’s execution.
A handsome new face, however, had appeared at Court -- nineteen-year-old Robert Devereux, the Second Earl of Essex. Tall, dark-eyed, with auburn hair, elegant, intelligent, he was Leicester’s step-son. Essex had taken an immediate dislike of Raleigh, now well into his thirties. He was jealous of Raleigh’s literary accomplishments and envious of his overseas enterprises. Essex was of aristocrat, an ancestor of Edward III. Lord Burghley and his son Robert Cecil, two of Elizabeth’s key advisors, had encouraged a relationship between the young man and the Queen, believing he could best rejuvenate her from her depression. Playing cards frequently with him, she found him to be an exhilarating companion. Having a quick temper, Essex was given to passionate outbursts and tantrums. As time would demonstrate, he harbored great resentments. Elizabeth had allowed him a freedom of speech she had not Christopher Hatton or Raleigh. Raleigh’s enemies had watched gleefully as Essex had begun to supplant Raleigh as her favorite. In June 1587 she had made Essex her Master of the Horse, succeeding his step-father, the Earl of Leicester. After she had recalled Leicester in November, upon Leicester’s insistence, Elizabeth sent Essex and Leicester’s nephew, Sir Philip Sidney, to the Netherlands to replace him.
Raleigh’s assistance in helping Elizabeth prepare for Philip’s invasion would prove to be considerable. He had sold his ship, the Ark Raleigh, to the Queen for a modest 500 pounds. (It would be renamed the Ark Royal and be the flag ship of the Lord High Admiral, Charles Lord Howard) In November, while Essex and Sidney were being transported to the Netherlands and John White was pressing him yet for relief ships, Raleigh was appointed to Elizabeth’s Council of War. His specific duty was to levy troops and improve defenses in Southwest England. He would set up a system of beacons from Cornwall to the south coast to alert the early appearance of Philip’s fleet. 6,000 trained men would be held ready to march to Plymouth and another 8,000 to Falmouth if either port were attacked.
Winter passed. In March 1588, Grenville was poised with a fleet of ships at Bideford to sail to the Caribbean and, afterward, to Roanoke Island. Just before he was to lift anchor, the Privy Council ordered him to travel to Plymouth where he was to relinquish his ships to his long-time adversary, Francis Drake. Not one of the ships would be used months later against Philip’s Armada. Historian Lee Miller conjectures that Walsingham was responsible for this decision. “Yet ships did leave. … Specifically, the ships that are not allowed to sail are Raleigh’s” (Miller 194). White implored Raleigh for assistance. Raleigh was able to procure two small ships – the Row and the Brave -- unsuitable for naval engagement. “April 22, 1588. The boats leave the Devon coast. White rides in the Brave, captained by Arthur Facy. Fifteen colonists sail with him … If the weather is favorable, White can expect a two-month crossing, placing them on Roanoke at the end of June” (Miller 195). Instead, Facy and the Row engaged immediately in privateering. They encountered on May 6 a French vessel twice each of the English vessels’ sizes. The French ship’s crew attempted to board the Brave. White was wounded twice in the head -- by a sword and then by a pike -- and shot in the side of the buttock. The Brave surrendered and was looted. Released, the Brave and the badly battered Row limped back to England.
Raleigh was too busy to do anything more than commiserate. “There is no time now to think of any Roanoke rescue. … The kingdom’s troops are far too few; therefore Raleigh urges a radical plan of attack: hit the Spaniards by sea before they can land. The English navy is redesigned, the ships lowered to gain nimbleness and speed” (Miller 196). April 1588: “… Elizabeth ordered the refurbishment of twelve more ships and her government instituted a programme of intensive training for her fighting forces. Drake was in favour of sailing to Spain to sabotage Philip’s fleet, but she would not allow it, being concerned that her own ships would be either damaged or lost when she most needed them. Any confrontation at sea, she said, must take place within sight of the shores of England, in order to remind her sailors what they were fighting for” (Weir 388-389). Hoping yet that she could avert war, she dispatched Dr. Valentine Dale to meet with the Duke of Parma to negotiate a peace settlement. They met May 30, “the very day on which the Spanish Armada of 130 ships, manned by 30,000 men … set sail from Lisbon, bound for England” (Weir 389).
‘The progress of the Spanish fleet had been impeded by storms … As the chain of beacons flared, Elizabeth heard the news on the night of 22 July … A prayer of intercession, composed by the Queen, was read in churches” (Weir 389-390).
Philip’s Armada moved along the south coast headed for the Netherlands to upload Parma’s army. Waiting at Plymouth was the English fleet, 150 ships strong, its admiral Lord Howard of Effingham, assisted by the far more experienced Sir Francis Drake …
Effingham put out to sea after nightfall on the 19th. He skirmished briefly with the ships of the Armada off Eddystone, near Plymouth, on Sunday, July 21. Two days later near Portland, Dorset, he damaged severely several galleons. Two more were wrecked off the Isle of Wight July 25. “The English fleet continued to shadow the Armada as it sailed east, neatly avoiding any further engagements by sailing out of range whenever the galleons prepared for battle” (Weir 390).
The Armada anchored off Calais, where Parma and 16,000 troops waited. The English ships followed. At midnight on July 28 five “hell-burners” (fire ships), packed with wood and pitch, were sent amongst the galleons. The subsequent inferno, aided by high winds, caused great panic. The galleons scattered. Because of the high winds, the Spanish admiral was unable to regroup them into the Armada’s protective crescent formation.
“On 29 July, off Graylines … the two fleets engaged in what was to be the final battle. … The Spaniards lost eleven ships and 2000 men, and the English just fifty men. The action was only abandoned when both sides ran out of ammunition” (Weir 391).
On July 30 the wind changed. The Armada was forced northwards, off course, its galleons scattering. Effingham ordered his ships to chase them, but there was no need. “… the wind – the ‘Protestant’ wind, as people were now calling it … -- and terrible storms were bringing about more destruction than they could realistically have hoped to achieve themselves” (Weir 391).
Eventually, Effingham ended the chase. King Philip’s remaining ships, many of them broken, made their way dangerously around the coasts of Scotland, Ireland and Cornwall. Philip had suffered the worst naval defeat in his country’s history. He had lost two thirds of his men, “many dying stranded on remote beaches of wounds and sickness, or slaughtered in Ireland by the Lord Deputy’s men” (Weir 392). He had lost 44 ships. Many more were too damaged to be considered seaworthy. The English had lost only a hundred men and none of their ships. Yet Elizabeth was cautious. ‘This tyrannical, proud and brainsick attempt’ would be, she observed in a letter to James VI [of Scotland], ‘the beginning, though not the end, of the ruin of that king [Philip]’. The Spanish fleet might have been crippled, but there remained a very real threat from Parma and his army, who were poised to cross the Channel, and awaited only a favourable wind” (Weir 392).
Sources Cited:
Miller, Lee. Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2001. Print.
Weir, Alison. Elizabeth the Queen. London: Vintage Books, 1998. Print.
