Free The Spanish Armada by Robert Hutchinson

gaoler, Sir Amyas Paulet, was having no truck with such illegalities,
despite his sovereign’s fury at his non-cooperation. 95 Elizabeth’s Privy Council, fearful that she would change her mind and spare her
cousin, hastened to execute her, sending down Bull, the Tower’s executioner, in disguise to Fotheringay Castle, Northamptonshire, where Mary was imprisoned. He agreed a price of £10 (or
£1,880 at today’s prices) for the job and duly completed the grisly task on 8 February, holding aloft her severed head and crying out: ‘God save the queen!’
    Mary was wearing an auburn wig, and the head fell from his grasp and rolled across the scaffold, grey-haired and nearly bald, leaving a shocked Bull with only her dainty white cap and wig in his
hand. 96 Horribly, with the nerves in her dead face still twitching, her lips continued to move soundlessly as her blood soaked the straw and black
cloth of the platform.
    She had enjoyed the very last word.

 
     
     
     
– 2 –
     
    RUMOURS OF WAR
     
     
     
     
    I cannot but . . . advise Your Majesty to prepare every way for the worst . . . Set out a very strong navy to keep the seas forthwith . . . [and] provide, by your
     subjects, . . . to have a store of money which is the sinew to hold all by.
     
    Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to Elizabeth I;
    Flushing, 21 November 1587. 1
    F rancis Drake hated the Spanish with a burning, all-consuming passion, born out of a humiliating naval defeat, snatched dishonourably by his foes
in the harbour of San Juan de Ulúa, off Veracruz in Mexico, 2 in September 1568. He and his second cousin and fellow privateer John Hawkins had
been illegally trading with Spanish settlers in the New World – exchanging slaves from Sierra Leone for commodities 3 – when their flotilla
put into the port for repairs. A thirteen-strong Spanish fleet arrived and after agreeing a gentlemanly truce of convenience, sailed into the harbour. Several days later, they attacked the English
and, exploiting their advantage of surprise, destroyed four vessels. Hawkins and Drake ignominiously fled in the
Minion
and
Judith
respectively, arriving in Plymouth with only a
handful of survivors. There was more than a hint of animosity in Hawkins’ later statement that ‘the barque
Judith
, the same night, orsook us in our misery’. 4
    Drake swore to inflict a heavy revenge on the Spanish nation and embarked enthusiastically upon a lucrative career of preying on the treasure looted from their new empire across the Atlantic
– producing a highly profitable return for his financial backers of £47 for every £1 they had invested. 5 These fortunate speculators
included Elizabeth herself, who showered honours upon him, including a knighthood. Philip of Spain was enraged, reportedly offering a bounty of 20,000ducats
(£15,000,000 at current prices) on Drake’s head, dead or alive.
    The Spanish king was, however, more preoccupied with building a powerful navy with which to defend his country’s burgeoning colonial interests around the globe, rather than with scratching
away the irritant that Drake’s forays represented. In August 1580, Lisbon was captured and Portugal swiftly annexed. This not only provided an important new maritime base on the Iberian
peninsula’s Atlantic coast, but the conquest of his neighbour also brought its well-equipped fleet to augment existing Spanish sea power. As if to underline this tectonic shift in
Europe’s strategic balance, almost two years later, his admiral, Álvaro de Bazán, First Marquis of Santa Cruz, defeated a largely French mercenary squadron supporting Dom
Antonio, Prior of Crato and pretender to the Portuguese crown, at the Battle of Sâo Miguel off the Azores.
    On the diplomatic front, Philip sought to further isolate Elizabeth’s realm, with France the first target of his behind-the-scenes plotting. At the end of December 1584, the Spanish king
had secretly signed the Treaty of Joinville between Spain