The Spanish Armada (61 page)

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Authors: Robert Hutchinson

Tags: #History, #Europe, #Great Britain, #Military, #Naval, #General

BOOK: The Spanish Armada

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Princess Elizabeth as a young teenager. She was less enthusiastic about the Catholic faith, complaining ‘loudly all the way to the church’ and
‘wore a suffering air’ during Mass.

Mary I painted by Hans Eworth in 1554. She hated Elizabeth with a dark sibling passion and feared her half-sister as an ever-present threat to her
throne.

Mary Queen of Scots by François Clouet,
c.
1558-60. In 1564, during a visit by the Scots Ambassador, Elizabeth is said to have picked up this
miniature and kissed it. She changed her mind about her cousin four years later when Mary Queen of Scots fled to England. With Mary’s viable claim to the crown of England, she became an
inveterate conspirator against Elizabeth.

Philip II of Spain, painted by an unknown artist, after 1580. Deposing Elizabeth and the conquest of heretic England became a holy crusade.

Don Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, Seventh Duke of Medina Sidonia, was the reluctant commander of the Armada following the death of Santa Cruz from
typhus in February 1588.

Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, was to bring the Spanish invasion forces across from Flanders in narrow, flat-bottom barges. He never sailed.

Pope Sixtus V. Always counting his ducats, he reluctantly agreed to subsidise the Armada, but stipulated that not a penny should be paid before the first
Spanish soldier set foot on English soil. He was also a great admirer of Elizabeth I, much to everyone’s discomfort.

Elizabeth’s new ‘race built’ warships had sleek lines which enabled greater manoeuvrability during naval battles, emphasised here by the
superimposed image of a fish.

Howard’s flagship
Ark Royal
, purchased from Sir Walter Raleigh to clear some of his debts to the crown.

Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s secretary of state and spymaster, who dismissed early reports of preparations for the Armada as mere
‘Spanish brag’.

Dorset warning beacons, showing their construction.

Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s lord treasurer, who struggled to find the money to pay for England’s defence.

Charles Howard, Second Baron Effingham. He was one of Mary Queen of Scots’ judges at Fotheringay and two years later, as Lord High Admiral, pursued
the Spanish Armada up the English Channel and fought them in the Battle of Gravelines on 8 August 1588.

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