The pope
supported
the Armada
English
Catholics sailed
aboard the
Armada’s ships
As the costs of preparing the Armada rocketed, Philip
was forced to ask Pope Sixtus V for a loan. However,
this pope was notorious for his miserliness – as the
Spanish ambassador to the Vatican complained:
“When it comes to getting money out of him, it is like
squeezing his life blood.”
Perhaps the pope’s reticence was exacerbated
by his reputed infatuation for Elizabeth – he told an
astonished Venetian ambassador that “were she
a Catholic, she would be our most beloved, for she
is of great worth.”
In addition, Sixtus had a pet project to buy the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem – or recover
it by force of arms – from the Ottoman Turks and
rebuild it in Rome. He was piqued that, though the
Spanish army “would be sufficient for this purpose”,
it was fighting England instead of achieving his
ambitions in the Holy Land.
Eventually Sixtus promised to pay one million
gold ducats (roughly equivalent to £660m today), but
stipulated that only half would be paid up front. The
remainder would be paid in equal instalments every
two months after Spanish forces set foot in England.
Philip could bestow the English crown on whomever
he wished, providing that the realm was immediately
returned to the Catholic faith. Sixtus also demanded
that the church’s property and rights, alienated since
the time of Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, should now
be restored. In the event, the pope paid out nothing
at all.
After the Armada’s defeat, Sixtus instructed a
cardinal to write to console Philip and to encourage him
to launch a new expedition against England. The pope
refrained from writing himself, because he feared the
king “might make it a pretext for asking him for money”.At least four of the ‘gentlemen
adventurers’ in the ships’
companies were English,
and there were 18 among the
salaried officers. Inevitably,
some paid a heavy price for their
disloyalty to the crown; though
five Catholics managed to slip
away by boat from the stricken
Rosario before Drake took the
flagship, two Englishmen were
captured on board and taken to
the Tower of London as “rebels
and traitors to their country”.
One, identified as the
Cornishman Tristram Winslade,
was handed to officers
employed by Elizabeth’s
spymaster, Sir Francis
Walsingham, who were ordered
to interrogate him “using
torture... at their pleasure”.
Miraculously, Winslade
survived the rack and
Elizabeth’s justice, and died
in the Catholic seminary at
Douai (now in northern France)
in November 1605.
On board the battle-damaged
San Mateo, beached between
Ostend and Sluis after the battleof Gravelines, two Englishmen
were killed by Dutch sailors. One
was named as William Browne,
a brother of Viscount Montague.
The local commissioner for the
Protestant States of Zeeland
reported that the second man
killed was “very rich, who left
William as his heir”.
Other Englishmen were
reported as having been
aboard this ship, eating with her
captain, Don Diego Pimentel.
“One was called Robert,
another Raphael, once servant
to the... mayor of London. We
do not know their surnames.”
They may have been among
those forcibly drowned or
hanged by the Dutch who were
rebelling against Spanish rule.
Before the campaign
began, there were reports of
disaffection below decks in
Elizabeth’s warships. After a
scare on board Lord Edmund
Sheffield’s White Bear, the
“barber and three of four others
took the oath [of allegiance to
the crown] and renounced the
pope’s authority”.Pope Sixtus V, who was asked by Philip II for a loan
to help cover the huge costs of the Armada4
3
ALAMY