Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T01:25:46.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Elizabethan Foreign Policy in Microcosm: The Portuguese Pretender, 1580–89

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Gordon K. McBride
Get access

Extract

Among the numerous preoccupations of historians one of the most persistent concerns the political and diplomatic skill of England's Elizabeth I. From the two extremes of James Anthony Froude and Elizabeth Jenkins through the judicious work of J. E. Neale, scholars have long been frustrated by the English queen's apparent inconsistency, though dazzled by the brilliance of her reign. The result is a plethora of argument. It is the attempt here to illuminate Elizabethan foreign policy by isolating one minor aspect of it: the career of the Portuguese Pretender, Don Antonio. Hopefully the result will be a slightly clearer perception of that most illusive lady.

It can be asserted that two interests went to the very heart of foreign affairs in the reign of Elizabeth I: the encouragement of English maritime expansion and the resolve to keep the Netherlands from absolute domination by a major continental state. The maelstrom of international events in the second half of the sixteenth century placed both of these policies in stark juxtaposition to the interests of Spain, the greatest state of the age and the spear's tip of the militant Counter-Reformation.

By 1580 Anglo-Spanish relations had suffered a steady deterioration for two decades. The might of Philip II of Spain appeared boundless. Then in that year Philip's power grew perceptibly greater by the acquisition of the Portuguese throne, the significance of which did not escape the English. Had it not been for a persistent rival-Don Antonio, the Prior of Crato—King Philip might have conquered an old and respected kingdom with no more effort than it took to lace his boots.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , Fall 1973 , pp. 193 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Read, Conyers, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (New York: Knopf, 1960), pp. 223–4Google Scholar. Britain, Great, Calendar of Letters and State Papers Relating to English Affairs Preserved Principally in the Archives of Simancas, ed. Hume, Martin A. S. (London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1899), III: 37–8Google Scholar. (Hereafter Spanish Calendar).

2 Spanish Calendar, III: 45–6.Google Scholar

3 The other claimants were Ranuccio Farnese of Parma, Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, and Cathering de Medici, the Queen Mother of France. The other native Portuguese claim was made by the Duchess of Braganza, the line which eventually succeeded in restoring Portuguese independence. Don Antonio was a member of the order of St. John of Malta.

4 Britain, Great, Public Record Office, Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, Vols. XIV–XXIII, ed. Butler, A. J., et. al. (London: His Majesty's Stationary Office by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1904–1950), XV: 164–5Google Scholar. (Hereafter Foreign Calendar.).

5 Ibid., p. 192.

6 Ibid., p. 193.

7 Read, Conyers, Mr. Secretary Walsingham, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1925), II: 51.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., There was a second plan, a voyage to the Portuguese East Indies. Read believes the motives for both were entirely commercial.

9 See: Wernham, R. B., Before the Armada: The Emergence of the English Nation (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966), pp. 358–9.Google Scholar

10 Read, , Walsingham, II: 52.Google Scholar

11 Foreign Calendar, XV: 209–13.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 259.

13 Corbett, J. S., Drake and the Tudor Navy, 2 vols. (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912), I: 326.Google Scholar

14 For his own safety, Don Antonio had been forced to flee from Portugal on May 10. See: Consetaggio, G., History of the Uniting of the Kingdom of Portugal to the Crown of Castille (London: Arn Hatfield for Edward Blount, 1600) STC no. 5624, reel 205.Google Scholar

15 Read, , Walsingham, II: 52Google Scholar; Corbett, I: 326. Both scholars think she would have been willing to go to war if Henry III had made a clear commitment.

16 Foreign Calendar, IV: 271.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 223.

18 Spanish Calendar, III: 146–7Google Scholar;

19 Ibid., p. 159.

20 Ibid.

21 Foreign Calendar, XV: 302Google Scholar;

22 Ibid.

23 Corbett, I: 328–30.

24 Spanish Calendar, III: 165–7Google Scholar;

25 Foreign Calendar, XV: 671–2.Google Scholar

26 Britain, Great, Public Record Office, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Vols. I & II, ed. Lemon, Robert (London: Longmans et. al., 1856, 1865), II: 56Google Scholar. (Hereafter Domestic Calendar). Spanish Calendar, p. 326.

27 Wernham, p. 364; Foreign Calendar, XVIII: 243.Google Scholar

28 Durand-Lapie, Paul, “Un roi detroné réfugié in France,” Revue d'Historie Diplomatique, XVIII, XIX (1904–1905), XIX: 125.Google Scholar

29 Foreign Calendar, XVIII: 323–3.Google Scholar

30 Ibid. no. 408.

31 Ibid., p. 452.

32 Ibid., p. 541. Stafford was strongly moved by Don Antonio's cause and pressed very hard to have his financial plight relieved. He feared the fugitive might come to some agreement with Philip.

33 Ibid., XIX: 63

34 Ibid. p. 116.

35 Ibid., p. 74.

36 (Leyden: Christopher Plantyn, 1585), STC no. 683, reel 276, p. 54.

37 Foreign Calendar, XX: 146.Google Scholar

38 Spanish Calendar, III: 550–1, 569–70, 579.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., pp. 582, 602, 632-3; IV, p. 8; pp. 671-2; p. 65; Wernham, pp. 381-3.

40 Britain, Great, Calendar of Stale Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs Existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice, Vol. VIII, ed. Brown, Horatio F. (London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1894), pp. 121, 144Google Scholar. (Hereafter Venetian Calendar).

41 Spanish Calendar, IV: 50; 116, 121, 122, 147Google Scholar. The Pretender's desperation at this juncture is illustrated by an episode in which he presented Elizabeth with letters summoning him to return and lead an insurrection in Portugal. Unfortunately. Leicester had information that there had been no such summons.

42 Domestic Calendar, p. 427.

43 Venetian Calendar, p. 58.

44 Ibid., p. 61.

45 Corbett, II: 62; Read, Walsingham, III: 225-31.

46 See: Pears, Edwin, “The Spanish Armada and the Ottoman Porte,” English Historical Review, VIII (1893): 439–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Venetian Calendar, p. 149. Also see: Corbett, II: 63.

48 After August 1588, one other thrust was made in Don Antonio's name. Again the Ottoman Porte was approached to attack Philip in the Mediterranean and help place the Pretender upon his allusive throne. The English ambassador in Constantinople transmitted several plans involving bribery, the use of Don Antonio's son as a hostage and thrests, to convince Sultan Murad III to agree to oppose Philip. But the memory of Lepanto was too clear in his memory to try anything so rash. The negotiations, using Don Antonio as a focal point, continued well in 1591. See: Pears, ; Foreign Calendar, XXII, pp. 101–2, 138–9, 172–5Google Scholar; Venetian Calendar, pp. 512-14, 516-17, 529-30, 546. Also, Britain, Great, Public Record Office, List and Analysis of State Papers Foreign Series, Elizabeth I, Vol. II, Wernham, R. B., ed., (London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1969).Google Scholar

49 Foreign Calendar, XXI, pt. 1, pp. 184, 178–9Google Scholar; 601-3.

50 Spanish Calendar, IV: 355, 240–1, 252, 261, 271Google Scholar; Venetian Calendar, p. 350.

51 Black, J. B., The Reign of Elizabeth (2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), p. 399.Google Scholar

52 Mattingly, Garrett, The Armada (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1959). pp. 192–3.Google Scholar

53 Foreign Calendar, XXI, pt. 1, p. 184.Google Scholar

54 Ibid., pt. 2, p. 478.

55 Corbett, II: 294-6.

56 Ibid.

57 Foreign Calendar, XXIII: 138–40.Google Scholar

58 Wernham, R. B., “Queen Elizabeth and the Portugal Expedition of 1589,” English Historical Review, LXVI (1951): 1–26, 194–218, p. 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 Such reports continued to arrive in London as late as May 1589. Foreign Calendar, XXIII: 282.Google Scholar

60 Wernham, , “Queen Elizabeth and the Portugual Expedition of 1589,” p. 5.Google Scholar

61 Ibid., p. 18.

62 Ibid., pp. 25-6. For an opposite opinion see Goldingham, C. S., “The Expedition to Portugal, 1589,” Royal United Service Institution Journal, LXIII (1918): 469–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63 Wernham, , “Queen Elizabeth and the Portugual Expedition of 1589,” p. 5.Google Scholar

64 Domestic Calendar, II: 581.Google Scholar

65 Wernham, , “Queen Elizabeth and the Portugual Expedition of 1589,” p. 210Google Scholar; Venetian Calendar, pp. 451-3.

66 Goldingham, pp. 473-5.

67 Venetian Calendar, pp. 448-9, 445-6, 441-3, 456-8.

68 Wernham, , “Queen Elizabeth and the Portugual Expedition of 1589,” p. 210.Google Scholar

69 Durand-Lapie, pp. 243-55.

70 Elton, G. R., England Under the Tudors (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1965), p. 359.Google Scholar

71 Ibid.