The Spanish Armada (54 page)

1
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.483.

2
His real name was Johannes Müller (1436–76). His
Ephemeris
was employed by the explorer Christopher Columbus to
successfully predict the lunar eclipse of 29 February 1504, thereby impressing the inhabitants of Jamaica (where he was stranded) and persuading them to give him food. The name Regiomontanus was
given to Müller by the Protestant reformer Phillip Melanchthon in 1534. Königsburg, then the capital of east Prussia, is present-day Kaliningrad, capital of Russia’s
Oblast
of the same name.

3
Mattingly,
Defeat of the Spanish Armada
, p.167.

4
BL Cotton MS Caligula C ix, f.2.

5
Elizabeth wanted, at all costs, to avoid fighting a war on two fronts as her father, Henry VIII, had done in 1513 and again in the
1540s.

6
Martin & Parker,
The Spanish Armada
, p.103. Maxwell (1553–93) adopted the double-headed Imperial eagle flag of the Holy
Roman Empire as his personal banner. He was imprisoned but released after the Armada had limped back to Spain. Later, at the head of the clan Maxwell, he invaded Annandale, the ancient lands of the
clan Johnstone, but his force was ambushed at Dryfe Sands, near Lockerbie, on 3 December 1593 and seven hundred of his men were killed. Legend has it that as he tried to surrender, his outstretched
arm was completely severed by a sword before he was hacked to pieces.

7
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.314.

8
Ibid., p.322.

9
BL Harleian MS 296, f.48. In reality, Sixtus V refused to listen to the proposals of those who offered to assassinate her. This was in
stark contrast to the policy of his predecessor, Gregory XIII, whose secretary of state declared: ‘There can be no doubt that while that guilty woman of England holds the two noble Christian
kingdoms [England and Ireland] she has usurped, and while she is the cause of such great harm to the Catholic faith and the loss of so many millions of souls, whoever moves her from this life with
the due end of God’s service, not only would not sin but would be doing a meritorious deed, especially as the sentence still stands which Pius V of holy memory pronounced upon her.’
See: McGrath,
Papists and Puritans. . .
, p.195.

10
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.484.

11
CSP Domestic, Elizabeth Addenda 1580–1625
, p.232. The Bristol merchants were named as Thomas and Humphrey Hollman,
William Swanley, Robert Pentecost, Robert Alder, William Dawson, Ralph
and Richard Sadler and Richard James. The domiciles of John Roberts, Robert Barratt and Francis Poyllis
were not stated.

12
Mendoza to Philip II; Paris, 5 April 1587.
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, p.62.

13
BL Cotton MS Vespasian C viii, f.207.

14
Mendoza to Philip II; Paris, 12 July 1587.
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, p.123.

15
Ousley later served as a gentleman volunteer in Drake’s ship
Revenge
against the Armada and Lord Admiral Howard revealed
his reward: ‘It has pleased her majesty, in respect of his good service . . . in Spain, in sending very good intelligence thence, and now since in our late fight against the Spanish fleet, to
grant him the lease of [the rectory of] St Helen’s in [Bishopsgate] London.’
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, fn. p.123.

16
Read,
Secretary Walsingham . . .
, vol. 3, p.290.

17
BL Harleian MS 6,994, f.76.

18
For comparison, the budget for today’s British intelligence and security agencies, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ (the equivalent of the
USA’s FBI, CIA and NSA) totalled £2.2 billion in 2013.

19
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, p.123.

20
Deacon,
History of the British Secret Services
, p.20.

21
The North Foreland.

22
Philip to Parma; El Escorial, 4 September 1587.
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, pp.136–7.

23
Martin & Parker, op. cit., p.119.

24
TNA, SP 9/210/33.

25
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.472.

26
Ibid., p.486.

27
In May 1544.

28
Laughton,
Defeat of the Spanish Armada
, vol. 1, p.213.

29
Hardwick Papers
, vol. 1, p.360.

30
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.470.

31
APC
, vol. 16, p.168;
CSP Domestic Elizabeth
, p.507; Fernandez- Armesto,
Spanish Armada: The Experience of
War
, p.111. Burghley admitted he suffered sleepless nights worrying about the Thames defences, which cost £1,470. Richard Gibbes, one of Walsingham’s agents in Lisbon, who posed as
a Scotsman, was questioned about the suitability of various English rivers and harbours for use by the Armada ships. Misleadingly, he told them that the River Thames was ‘very ill, full of
sands within and without sight of land, and [it was]
impossible to bring in a navy’. See: Deacon, op. cit., p.20.

32
BL Add. MS 44,839.

33
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.304.

34
Boynton,
Elizabethan Militia
, p.129.

35
TNA, MPF 1/134.

36
McDermott,
England and Spain: A Necessary Quarrel
, p.187.

37
The southern maritime counties had only two sakers, two minions and two falcons each in March 1587. Ibid., p.184.

38
Sir George was the son of Lord Hunsdon. History supported his argument: more than 2,000 French troops had landed on the Isle of Wight in
1545.

39
TNA, SP 12/168/4. Repairs to the keep and walls of Carisbrooke Castle were undertaken in March 1587, together with the excavation of an
outer ditch.

40
APC
, vol. 14, p.229.

41
The protruding bastions provided flanking fire against attackers attempting to scale the walls.

42
Boynton, op. cit., p.130.

43
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.440.

44
O’Neill & Stephens,
Norfolk Archaeology
, vol. 28, pp. 5–6.

45
APC
, vol. 15, p.351.

46
The effect of certain branches of the Statute made in Anno. XXXIII Henry. VIII touching the maintenance of Artyllery and the
punishment of such as vse vnlawfull games, very necessary to be put into execution
(Society of Antiquaries Proclamations, vol. 4, Elizabeth, 1558–90, f.26).

47
APC
, vol. 14, pp.110 and 212.

48
Hogg, ‘England’s War Effort’, p.25.

49
Boynton, op. cit., p.141.

50
Hughes & Larkin,
Tudor Royal Proclamations
, vol. 2, pp.541–2.

51
HMC Foljambe, p.40. Walsingham’s contribution was larger than any other member of the English nobility or Privy Council, save for
Sir Christopher Hatton and the Earl of Essex.

52
APC
, vol. 15, pp.88–9; BL Add. MS 21,565, f.21.

53
BL Add. MS 21,565, f.21.

54
Boynton, op. cit., p.143.

55
Ibid., p.143.

56
‘Billmen’ carried ‘pole arms’ such as halberds or spears, some developed from agricultural implements.

57
CSP Domestic Elizabeth
,
1581–90
, p
.
75
.

58
Ibid., p.485.

59
In Huntingdonshire, one of the captains was named as ‘Oliver Cromwell’, commanding two hundred men (Murdin,
Collection
State Papers
, vol. 2, p.601). After losing most of his money supporting the royalist cause in the civil war, he died in 1655, aged ninety-two, after reputedly falling into a fire whilst drying
himself after a bath. Cromwell was the uncle and godfather of the ‘Lord Protector’ of the same name (born in 1599), who ruled England as a republic in the mid-seventeenth century.

60
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.521.

61
McGurk, ‘Armada Preparations in Kent’, p.80.

62
Martin & Parker, op. cit., p.255.

63
A type of helmet with a peak and protective cheek pieces.

64
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.520.

65
HMC Foljambe, p.35.

66
McGurk, op. cit., p.71.

67
TNA, SP 12/199/93.

68
HMC Foljambe, pp.33 and 39.

69
Loomie,
Spanish Elizabethans
, p.7.

70
BL Lansdowne MS 50, items 19–21.

71
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.445.

72
Ibid., p.449. Some had also fallen on hard times. Samuel Lewknor joined Parma’s army in the early 1580s and was wounded in the arm
whilst serving as a captain. He had married the daughter of a Brabant merchant but was crippled financially by a costly lawsuit over her dowry. Penniless, Lewknor begged a passport back to England
in 1590. Five years later, he published
The Estate of English Fugitives
in which he warned that Spain’s motives in helping English exiles was to ‘sow sedition’ or ensure
their deaths in Philip’s military service. Loomie, op. cit., p.10.

73
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.472.

74
Ibid., p.463.

75
See: Watson,
Historical Account of the Town of Wisbech
(Wisbech, 1827), p.127 and Hutchinson,
Elizabeth’s
Spymaster
, pp.305–6.

76
Covington,
Trail of Martyrdom . . .
, p.70.

77
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.425.

78
Ibid., p.458.

79
Boynton, op. cit., p.149.

80
Sir Richard Knightly, who was organising construction of new beacons in Hampshire in December 1586, wrote to Sir Edward Montague,
seeking an estimate ‘for the number of trees needed for a beacon . . . I think you must set down more than three to a beacon unless your trees [are] a great deal bigger
than ours.’ HMC Montague, p.12. The earliest mention of a beacon system is in 1324, dealing with thirty-one in the Isle of Wight and the system was still operational in 1745 when Prince
Charles Stewart – ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ – was expected to land on the south coast and again in 1804 when Napoleon Bonaparte threatened invasion. (White, ‘The Beacon
System in Kent’, pp.78–9 and 91.)

81
Kitchen, ‘The Ghastly War Flame: The Beacon System in Essex’, p.42. An almost contemporary map of the beacon sites in Kent
is in BL Add. MS 62,935.

82
Invasions were considered unlikely to be launched in the winter months. In December 1580, the Hampshire justices were told to stand down
their beacon watch ‘in consideration of the extremity and sharpness of the weather’.

83
Boynton, op. cit., p.134; Kitchen, op. cit., p.42.

84
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, pp.339–40.

85
Surrey Local History Centre LM/1945.

86
White, ‘Beacon System in Hants’, p.279.

87
APC
, vol. 15, pp.xi and 17.

88
The Privy Council were told that Poole was suffering ‘decay and disability’ and so they thought it ‘convenient [that]
they shall be spared for the present and eased of that burden’.
APC
, vol. 16, p.23.

89
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.473,
APC
, vol. 15, p.59.

90
Revd. J. Silvester-Davies,
History of Southampton
(Southampton, 1883), p.253.

91
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.477;
APC
, vol. 15, p.60.

92
APC
, vol. 15, p.92.

93
By comparison, the navy strength at the time of Henry VIII’s death in January 1547 was fifty-three ships, displacing a total of
10,000 tons.

94
Laughton, op. cit., vol. 1, p.23.

95
Martin & Parker, op. cit., p.33.

96
Ibid., pp.34–5.

97
McDermott, op. cit., p.77.

98
TNA, SP 12/208/79, f.181.

99
The ship had been bought for the navy from Sir Walter Raleigh for £5,000, the sum being deducted from his debts to the queen. She
was launched on 12 June 1587.

100
TNA, SP 12/208/87 f.201
v
.

101
TNA, SP 12/209/40 f.77.

1
Laughton,
Spanish Armada
, vol. 1, p.175.

2
In Rome, Pope Sixtus believed Santa Cruz’s death was caused by the admiral’s ‘disgust at two orders issued by the king;
first that Don Pedro de Fuentes of the house of Toledo was to sail with the marqués [and] the other that [he] was to obey the Duke of Parma’.
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, p.343.

3
Santa Cruz’s body was exhumed in 1643 and reburied in the convent of San Francisco.

4
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, p.339.

5
Mattingly,
Defeat of the Spanish Armada
, p.192.

6
In early January, the Venetian envoy listed three thousand as dead from disease and a thousand were sick. A further one thousand had
deserted.

7
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, p.329.

8
This Venetian ship was commandeered in 1587 while she was alongside in a Sicilian port. She had been hired to transport troops to
Lisbon.

9
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, p.336. The Spanish planned to build temporary wooden fortifications to protect their bridgehead in Kent.

10
Ibid., pp. 337–8.

11
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, pp.187–8.

12
Ibid., p.200.

13
Thompson, ‘Medina Sidonia. . .’, p.198.

14
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, p.340.

15
A
real
was a small Spanish silver coin, 0.8 inch diameter (20.3 mm), eight of which were worth a silver dollar.

16
Medina Sidonia to Juan de Idiáquez; San Lúcar de Barrameda, 16 February 1588.
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4,
pp.207–8; and printed in full in Duro,
La armada Invencible
, vol. 1, pp.414–17. Most of Medina Sidonia’s income came from foreign trade (particularly from England) and
this had slumped during the hostilities, although he was accused of conniving at illegal trade for his own profit. See: Thompson, op. cit., p.213 and Braudel,
La Méditerranée . .
.
, pp.575–6. In fact, despite his protests of poverty, Medina Sidonia contributed 7,827,358
maravedis
, or £2,245, towards the Armada costs.

17
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, p.319.

18
Oria
et al., La armada Invencible
, vol. 1, p.148; Thompson, op. cit., p.213; Martin & Parker,
Spanish Armada
, p.125.

19
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, p.209.

20
Mattingly, op. cit., p.196.

21
He took over command of the English forces after Leicester’s return to England.

22
Lincolnshire Archives – 8ANC/58. ?March 1588.

23
Fernandez-Armesto,
Spanish Armada, the Experience of War
, p.15.

24
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, p.341.

25
See: de Courcy Ireland, ‘Ragusa and the Spanish Armada’. Some historians believe that as many as twenty-three Ragusan ships
served with the Armada of which twelve were galleons; ibid., pp.254–5.

26
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, p. 332.

27
Ibid., p. 340.

28
Ibid., p.351.

29
Oria
et al.
, op. cit., pp.112, 124, 125, 136; Duro, op. cit., vol. 1, p.385; Thompson, op. cit., p.207.

30
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, pp.225–6.

31
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, pp.232–3 and 239.

32
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, pp.331 and 336.

33
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, p.201.

34
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, pp.329 and 331. The threat of an English invasion to put the pretender Dom Antonio on the Portuguese throne
may have been one of the chief motivations behind the Armada. See: Armstrong, ‘Venetian Dispatches’, pp.673–4 and Thompson, op. cit., p.203.

35
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, pp.332 and 335.

36
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, p.202.

37
Walsingham had been suffering from a recurrent fever which left him so weak: ‘as that neither my hand or arm can endure the use of
my pen’.

38
Hardwick Papers
, vol. 1, pp.360–1.

39
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, p.191.

40
Ibid., p.201. Elizabeth’s instructions to her chief negotiator, Dr Valentine Dale, are in Hatfield House CP 17/2.

41
Mattingly, op. cit., p.180.

42
Mattingly, op. cit., p.223; Mousset,
Dépêches diplomatiques
, p.380.

43
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, p.344. Later Gritti reported the bribe amounted to 500,000 crowns.

44
The Holy Roman Empire, ruled by Rudolf II from 1576, encompassed Germany, Austria, the present-day Czech
Republic, northern Italy, western Poland and Switzerland.

45
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, p.345.

46
Ibid., p.363.

47
Fugger Newsletters
, (1924), p.122.

48
Anabaptists only recognised the baptism of adult believers.

49
William Allen,
Admonition
, p.xi. It was signed: ‘From my lodging in the palace of St Peter, Rome, the 28th of April
1588’. An Italian translation was made solely for the information of the Pope and the Duke of Parma. A Spanish agent in London had warned at the end of March of an English plot to poison
Allen, ‘I can assure you the matter is being arranged.’
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, p.239.

50
Ibid., p.289; Meyer,
England and the Catholic Church .
. ., fn. p.326.

51
Parma to Philip II; Bruges, 21 July 1588.
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, p.351.

52
Mendoza to Philip II; Paris, 5 April 1588.
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, p.258.

53
Ibid., pp.240–1.

54
Ibid., p.252.

55
Ibid., p.265.

56
The ‘Earl of Surrey’ was Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel. William Vaux, Third Baron Vaux of Harrowden (1535–95) was
convicted for recusancy and committed to the Fleet by the Privy Council. He was tried in the Star Chamber in February 1581 on charges of harbouring the priest Edmund Campion, together with his
brother-in-law Sir Thomas Tresham. Vaux was gaoled and fined £1,000. The Fleet prison was located in Farringdon Street, on the eastern banks of the Fleet River, outside the western walls of
the City of London. It was built in 1197 but was destroyed three times: during the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, the Great Fire of London in 1666 and during the Gordon Riots of 1780. It was
finally demolished in 1846.

57
Bedingfield held Elizabeth under house arrest during her time at Woodstock.

58
Although the earl’s brother, Sir William Stanley, listed under Lancashire, ‘is a good Catholic’.

59
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, pp.184–6. The document ends: ‘I wish to God my old own bones were of any service to
his majesty in the cause for I would willingly die in service of the Catholic faith under the protection of his majesty, whom God bless.’

60
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 3, pp.80–6.

61
A quintal is a measurement of dry weight, equal to 102 lb or 46.28 kg.

62
A fanega of beans is equivalent to two bushels (70.48 litres).

63
An arroba is a measurement of liquid volume equal to 3.5 gallons (15.91 litres).

64
A pipe was a large wooden cask holding 105 gallons (477 litres).

65
Hatfield House CP 17/23.

66
In contrast, in the English fleet, preachers were recorded in the ship’s companies of the
Ark Royal, Elizabeth Jonas, Revenge,
Lion, Bear
and
Rainbow
.

67
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, pp.284–5.

68
Fernandez-Armesto, op. cit., p.52.

69
Fernandez-Armesto, op. cit., pp.8–10;
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, pp.269–70 and 284–6;
CSP Domestic,
Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.16. In March 1588, Burghley, alarmed at the cost of the fleet’s provisions, reduced the beef ration at two pennies the pound and introduced alternate fish
days.
CSP Domestic, Elizabeth, 1581–90
, p.468.

70
In April 1588, Parma had just over nine hundred Irish soldiers under Sir William Stanley, who had defected and handed over the town of
Deventer to the Spanish, and eight hundred and four Scots, commanded by Archibald Peyton. An intelligence report from Flanders claimed the brutality and ill-conduct of Irish soldiers in
Parma’s army was so bad that the Spanish had nicknamed them
los savages perdidos –
the ‘evil savages’.
CSP Domestic, Elizabeth
,
1581–90
,
p.446.

71
H. O’Donnell, ‘The Requirements of the Duke of Parma for the Conquest of England’ in Gallagher & Cruickshank
(eds),
God’s Obvious Design
, pp.96–7.

72
BL Cotton MS Vespasian cviii, f.105
v
.

73
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, pp.261–2.

74
Whitehead,
Brags and Boasts
, pp.58–78.

75
CSP Venice
, vol. 8, pp.351–2.

76
Mattingly, op. cit., pp.202–3; Martin & Parker, op. cit., p.128.

77
A naval custom, observed in the sixteenth century in Spain and other Catholic countries. Boys would say the
Pater Noster
before
a bell was tolled three times, a process repeated twice more.

78
Harleian Miscellany
, vol. 1, pp.111–14.

79
TNA, SP 94/3, f.227
r.

80
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, pp.245–52.

81
Naish, ‘Documents Illustrating the History of the Spanish Amada’, pp.21–2.

82
CSP Spain (Simancas)
, vol. 4, p.273.

83
BL Harleian MS 288, f.187; Read,
Secretary Walsingham
, vol. 2, p.423.

84
Gómez-Centurión,
La Invencible .
. ., p.70.

85
CSP Domestic Elizabeth, 1581–90
, pp.483 and 486.