Elizabethan Fact of the Day: Charles Howard is Promoted

A full-length portrait of Charles Howard, Lord High Admiral of England. By Daniel Mijtens, circa 1620. Royal Museums, Greenwich. Picture acquired through Wikimedia Commons. Image public domain.

In 1587, Queen Elizabeth I appointed her maternal cousin Charles Howard to the position of Lord High Admiral, head of the English naval forces. The appointment was due to her anticipation of an invasion from Spain, which would indeed come in 1588.

Elizabethan Fact of the Day: Mendoza is Dismissed from Court

An engraving of Bernardino de Mendoza, c. 1595. By an artist from the Spanish School. Image public domain.

In 1583, Queen Elizabeth I hosted her last Spanish Ambassador. When it became known to Elizabeth's intelligence network that Bernardino de Mendoza was conspiring with the Jesuits and negotiating with the French on Philip II of Spain's behalf, he was ordered to leave England. Mendoza was told that his dismissal due to his involvement in the Throckmorton Plot "disturbed the realm of England". Directly before his departure, Mendoza ordered the English officials seeing him off to go and, "tell your mistress that Bernardino de Mendoza was born not to disturb kingdoms, but to conquer them."

This threat was never to materialize, however; all of Mendoza's secret plots came to nothing, a few years later, as the Spanish invasion of England failed when Queen Elizabeth I and her navy defeated Philip II's Armada in 1588.

A 16th century painting of the Spanish Armada and the English Navy. By an artist from the English School. Picture acquired through Wikimedia Commons. Image public domain.

Mendoza was involved in at least two plots against Queen Elizabeth I; to learn more about the Babington Plot, which was supported by de Mendoza, please view our article.

On This Day in Elizabethan History: The Battle of the Gravelines

A detail of a portrait of Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia. The Duke was a key player in the Armada conflict of 1588, as he was the commander-in-chief of the Spanish fleet.

On this day in Elizabethan history 1588, the English attacked the invading Spanish Armada in the Battle of the Gravelines. Gravelines was a port in Flanders, and thus part of the Spanish Netherlands. The battle lasted 8 hours, and Queen Elizabeth I's navy sank 3 ships before driving the rest away. The engagement resulted in an important English victory. 

Elizabethan Fact of the Day: Queen Elizabeth's Political Aptitude

Elizabeth I in her Parliament Robes, c.1585-1590. Painting formerly attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, and is on display in Helmingham Hall, Stowmarket. Picture acquired through Wikimedia Commons. Image public domain.

Today, I want to share an excerpt with my readers from the outstanding book The Armada by the late, great Garrett Mattingly. Mattingly's book details the causes and effects of the cold war with Spain, and the English navy's engagement and eventual defeat of the Spanish Armada. Mattingly has a gift for conveying the character of Queen Elizabeth amidst his chronology of the historical facts. It is apparent in reading Mattingly's work that he had a great admiration for Queen Elizabeth's political mastery, and he found several ways to describe her sensational gift for understanding and manipulating politics; one of these is below:

"Neither the shrewdest of her diplomatic adversaries nor her own intimate counselors ever succeeded in reading the mind of Elizabeth Tudor. No one can pretend to now. She was complete mistress of the politicians art of using words to conceal meaning on public questions and on personal relations she covered sheet after sheet with vigorous scrawl, winding her sentences like an intricate coil of serpents about her secret conclusions, hinting, alluding, promising, denying and at last gliding away from the subject with no more said than served her purpose. In council and in public negotiations she permitted herself at times the frankest outbursts, the most vehement outpourings of personal, apparently unrestrained, and those who knew her best were the least certain that they had netted from the torrent of her words the smallest fragment of her real intentions." (Mattingly, 27)

Elizabeth understood that knowledge of politics and wariness of intrigues was just as essential to governing as possessing a commanding stage presence and utilizing theatrics. She herself asserted this truth when she said,

"We princes were set as it were upon stages in the sight and view of the world."

Sources:

Mattingly, Garrett. The Armada. Mariner Books, 2005. Print.