The Confident Hope of a Miracle

by Neil Hanson

  However, probably alerted by Stafford, Mendoza informed his master and the Catholic League of Epernon’s plans, and in March 1587 the Duc de Guise’s cousin, the Duc d’Aumale, launched a pre-emptive attack and occupied three towns in Picardy in north-east France, though crucially he failed to take Boulogne, which locked its gates against him. Aumale continued to occupy the towns throughout the summer, the prime season for an invasion of England, and withdrew only in October at the onset of winter. Had the Armada been launched in 1587 as Philip had planned, Aumale would have been in position to launch a fresh assault upon Boulogne as the Spanish fleet approached. It seems unlikely that this was a coincidence rather than a planned strategy, but the delays to the Armada and the failure to take Boulogne left Philip, for all his considerable investment in the League, still without the one thing he most needed for the success of the Enterprise of England—a deep-water port on the Channel coast. Mendoza felt that he had extracted a promise from Henri that his Channel ports would be open to any Spanish ships seeking shelter and supplies, but Henri had no reason to aid Philip in an endeavour so damaging to French interests. If he had indeed made that promise, it was a diplomatic fiction and one that was not communicated to the governors of his Channel ports.

  To Mendoza’s horror Henri had also begun to bargain with Elizabeth, citing his refusal to take up arms in a Catholic crusade against her and asking her in return to pressure Navarre to renounce his Protestant faith, depriving de Guise and the Catholic League of the pretext for their actions. Henri pointed out that “the Queen did not allow any other religion in her own country and it was only reasonable that the King of France should endeavour to do the same in his dominions,” and warned her that if she made peace with Philip “it would not last three months.” Philip would employ all his forces “to ruin him [Henri] and she might well imagine what would happen to her afterwards.” Taking a leaf from Mendoza’s black book, the French King also had his ministers spreading the rumour that Philip “had gone mad and in future the Infanta Isabella would sign all papers.”

  On 15 April Philip had assured Mendoza that the Armada would sail before the end of the month, and the priests and clerics in every church in Paris were at once prompted to begin a fresh onslaught on the King, lauding the Duc de Guise’s achievements and accusing Henri of conspiring with the heretics to murder the good Catholics of Paris. Open calls were made from almost every Parisian pulpit for de Guise to defend the citizens against the King, and on 9 May he duly entered Paris. A coup d’état three years in the planning was now under way, but for reasons known only to himself, instead of going to his headquarters where he would have been protected by his supporters, de Guise made his way to the home of Catherine de’ Medici. When her dwarf told her that de Guise was approaching, she called him mad, but when she herself saw him in the street below, surrounded by a crowd of admirers, she blanched and an observer heard a tremor in her voice as she issued orders. As de Guise entered, he told her in a voice loud enough to reach every ear that he had come to clear his name of slander and to offer his services to the King, trusting in the help and advice of the Queen Mother. She then drew him aside and they carried on a whispered conversation, out of earshot of all witnesses, though the same observer noted that Catherine looked frightened and de Guise embarrassed.

  Dr. Cavriana, Catherine de’ Medici’s physician and an informant of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, told his master that Mendoza was the man “who arranged the dance and leads it,” but this move by de Guise had not been choreographed and Mendoza’s first intimation of the unexpected turn of events came when a roar from outside his house greeted the sight of the Queen’s sedan chair being carried through the streets towards the Louvre Palace, with de Guise walking alongside it, bowing to the crowds as they strewed his path with flowers. When the Pope was informed, his reaction was rather different: “The fool! He is going to his death.” When Alfonse d’Ornano, Captain of the Corsicans, was told that de Guise had arrived in Paris, he told the King, “Just give the order, Sire, and I will lay his head at your feet.” Henri balked at that extreme action and the intervention of Catherine de’ Medici saved de Guise from imprisonment and probably death. It was to be the last time that she was able to bend her son to her will.6

  There were now up to 2,000 League soldiers in Paris, and they no longer took much care to conceal themselves. Arms were also handed to the mob, many wearing white crosses on their hats in an echo of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, but before first light on Thursday 12 May, the King’s Swiss and French Guards marched into Paris ahead of several columns of horse, flying their colours, pikes at the ready and muskets loaded. They stationed themselves at strongpoints throughout the city, but the King had issued them with strict orders not to injure any citizen of Paris, and as the realization dawned on the mob that the Guards would not resist them, they built barricades in every street. The soldiers had no food and no water and increasingly anxious messages reached the King, who finally ordered them to make an orderly withdrawal to the Louvre. As they did so, shots were fired in the Place Maubert. Alarm bells began to ring, church towers right across the city picked up the refrain and firing started to echo from every quarter. The Guards breached the first barricades without trouble but then found themselves trapped in the narrow streets under a hail of musket-fire, cobblestones, rocks and tiles from the roofs above them. “They threw down on us great stones and blocks of wood and all manner of furniture . . . and an infinite number of people armed with arquebuses fired on us as if we had been enemies of the King. All this time, very strange monks cried out, inciting the people against us as if we had been Huguenots and desecrators of sacred objects.” Most of the Guards threw down their arms and surrendered, praying for mercy and showing crucifixes and rosaries to prove they were good Catholics. Bonfires blazed in the streets all night in celebration of de Guise’s triumph and he wrote to one of his commanders, “This victory is so great that it will be remembered for ever.”

  That evening, Henri sent his mother to ask what terms de Guise wished to impose. The answer was brutal; if the King dismissed his friends and his guards, debarred Henri of Navarre from the succession, named de Guise as his rightful heir and surrendered all power to him and his allies, he would be allowed to continue as King of France, but in name only. De Guise’s demands were reinforced by the growing size and menace of the mob surrounding the Louvre, but whether through accident or design, the Porte Neuve had been left unguarded. Henri again sent his mother to de Guise, asking him to control the mob, and then fled with a small group of retainers and advisers. They rode out of Paris, “some without boots, some without spurs,” but Henri could not resist one final rhetorical flourish as he abandoned his capital. “Farewell Paris. I have honoured you above any place in my kingdom. I have done more for your wealth and glory than any ten of my predecessors and I have loved you better than ever I loved wife or friend. Now you have repaid my love with treachery, insult and rebellion, but I shall be revenged on you. When next I enter you it shall be through a breach in your walls.” By the following day he had reached the safety of Chartres.

  When reports of the events in Paris reached Parma, he remarked that “the Duc de Guise has never heard our Italian proverb: ‘He who draws his sword against his prince should throw away the scabbard,’ ” but the news was “rejoiced at” in London, since it now appeared certain that Henri would not find common cause with the Catholic League and might even be tempted into alliance with Elizabeth and Navarre. The Queen at once summoned the French ambassador and promised that she would “place all her forces by sea and land in the struggle and promised him [Henri] mountains and fountains if he would join her.” The reply must have disappointed her: Henri “had sufficient forces to punish those who were disobedient to him,” and was already in negotiation with the Catholic League in an attempt to settle their differences. On 21 July an agreement was duly signed, though neither of the principals appeared to regard it as more than a holding operation. One of its terms
was that Henri would “renounce his alliance and friendship with the Queen of England,” but when told the Armada had been forced to put into Corunna by bad weather, Henri remained sufficiently unabashed to remark, “That is a fine story. It was only because they had seen the English fleet and were frightened.”7

  Mendoza had tried to time the “Day of the Barricades” in Paris to coincide with the Armada’s approach to the Channel, but although the endless delays had rendered that aim impossible, he remained content with the outcome of his schemes, if scornful of de Guise’s failure to eliminate Henri. Whatever fate befell France, most of the Spanish aims had now been achieved. Mendoza’s intrigues and Philip’s gold had ensured that the Enterprise of England could now proceed without the danger of a French attack on the Armada or the thinly defended Spanish Netherlands. However, in one crucial area Philip’s French clients had failed to fulfil their promises to him. Although Le Havre declared for the League, the key ports of north-eastern France—Calais, Dieppe and Boulogne—remained in the control of forces loyal to the King . . . at least until they saw which way the political wind was likely to blow. As a result, the Armada still lacked a Channel port where it could resupply or take refuge. If Medina-Sidonia hoped to find one, he would have to fight for it.

  The final figure in Philip’s Europe-wide strategy, the Duke of Parma, Captain General of the Army of Flanders, had by far the most important role. The seventeen provinces of The Netherlands had only been brought together as Habsburg dominions by Philip’s father, Charles V, and the Dutch had grown accustomed to a measure of religious freedom. When Philip made attempts to extirpate Protestant heresies from the provinces, he inflamed the existing discontent over rising food prices and failing harvests into a full-scale rebellion under the leadership of William of Nassau, Prince of Orange. Philip’s response was to crush the revolt with overwhelming force. In August 1567 the Duke of Alba led 8,000 hardened Spanish troops, augmented by over 30,000 levies from Italy, Germany and Flanders, into The Netherlands and his “Council of Blood” brutally suppressed the fledgling revolt, slaughtering and burning heretics in every town and driving the remnants of the rebels into exile.

  Those events presaged a sea change in English foreign policy. Until that point, England’s principal continental antagonist had always been France and the main aim of Elizabeth’s foreign policy was to prevent France and Scotland from combining to depose her and place Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne. Once Alba began his reign of terror, Spain and its imperial designs became England’s dominant preoccupation. The presence of this huge standing army within striking distance of England, France and the Protestant princedoms of Germany was a threat that none of them could ignore, and both Elizabeth of England and Henri III of France began to give covert assistance to the Dutch. Elizabeth’s support was reluctant, but if she had refused the Dutch they would have been forced further into the arms of France, confronting England with the equally distasteful prospect of a French-controlled seaboard stretching from Biarritz to the Baltic.

  After Alba had crushed the rebellion, Elizabeth allowed the “Sea Beggars,” the exiled Dutch navy, to operate out of Dover and gave her tacit approval for attacks on Spanish shipping. The Sea Beggars were mostly former fishermen from the Dutch provinces of Friesland, Holland and Zeeland, and had been given their sobriquet because of their lawless behaviour and the shabby appearance of their ships, but they were fine seamen and brave and resourceful fighters. Elizabeth eventually expelled them in March 1572 as part of an attempted rapprochement with Spain, but the Sea Beggars at once seized the ports of Brill and Flushing, depriving Spain of its only deep-water anchorage on the Dutch coast and inspiring a renewed rebellion in Holland and Zeeland, “the great bog of Europe . . . an universal quagmire. Indeed, it is the buttock of the world: full of veins and blood, but no bones in it.” Within this coastal warren of meres, salt marshes, shallows and shoals, the Dutch fleet of shallow-draught flyboats operated with impunity, threatening and blockading ports in Spanish-held territory and defeating any seaborne force sent against them. A Spanish fleet ran aground there in 1572, and when another was repulsed two years later, Philip abandoned attempts to defeat the rebels by sea and poured fresh resources into a land campaign.

  The Duke of Alba’s Army of Flanders, now swollen to 60,000 men, captured and sacked several Dutch-held cities, treating the occupants with terrible ferocity and bringing the revolt to the brink of collapse, but the cost of maintaining the army and fighting the war crippled Spain. In September 1575 the Spanish Treasury declared itself bankrupt and Philip’s continuing difficulties in finding the money to pay his armies led to mutinies by the Army of Flanders in July and November 1576. Unlike Alba’s earlier massacres, the resultant sacking and pillaging of Aalst and the “Spanish Fury” at Antwerp—an orgy of killing, raping and looting in which 8,000 were slaughtered by soldiers “executing all such as they overtook . . . great numbers of young children, but many more women” while their “lackeys and pages followed with firebrands and wild fire, setting the houses on fire”—were not deliberate acts of policy, but the result of the bloodlust of his mutinous soldiers. They dealt a grievous blow to their King as well as to their Dutch victims, for much of Antwerp was left in ruins, slashing Philip’s tax revenues, and the city never recovered its former importance as a mercantile centre.

  William of Orange became de facto leader of the entire Netherlands, but his demands for recognition, freedom of worship for his people and a right of veto over the appointment of Crown officials were more than Philip could stomach, and he at once ordered a campaign of reconquest under a new commander, his illegitimate half-brother, Don Juan of Austria. He had commanded the Spanish fleet at the battle of Lepanto, which had been fought by galleys and decided by vicious hand-to-hand fighting after he ordered his troops to hold their fire “until near enough to be splashed with the blood of an enemy.” Don Juan believed that the solution to the Dutch problem lay elsewhere: “Everyone believes that the only remedy for the disorders of The Netherlands is that England should be ruled by someone devoted to Your Majesty. If the contrary case prevails, it will mean the ruin of these countries and their loss to your crown.” Don Juan proposed a lightning raid across the Channel to depose Elizabeth in favour of Mary, Queen of Scots, and restore England to the old faith. His price for performing this service was to be the hand of Mary in marriage and a share of the throne. Philip originally gave a cautious blessing to the idea, but Don Juan fell out of favour and died in 1578 with his ambitions unfulfilled, and the King then gave command of his forces in Flanders to his illegitimate nephew, Alexander Farnese, Prince (later Duke) of Parma, another hero of Lepanto. As a boy Parma had visited England and become one of the many European princes touted as a possible future husband for Elizabeth; now he was to play a key role in the attempt to bring about her downfall.8

  Parma was born in August 1545, one of twin sons—his brother died at birth—to Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma, and Margaret, the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Charles V. He was a power in his own right, maintaining a Court of 1,500, but for all the wealth he would inherit from his duchy and his blood connections to the royal houses of Catholic Europe, Alexander Farnese bore the stigma of his inherited illegitimacy throughout his life, and it undoubtedly shaped his chosen career. Illegitimate siblings and close relatives were always a danger to monarchs, a focus for the intrigues of disaffected factions at Court. They often fell prey to the knife or the poisoner’s art, as the King or his advisers sought to secure his position, and one of the few safe ways in which they could channel their personal ambitions was through a military career far from Court intrigues. Both Philip’s half-brother, Don Juan of Austria, and his nephew, Parma, were to choose that route and achieve renown throughout the known world.

  After Philip was crowned King of Spain, he summoned Margaret of Parma and her eleven-year-old son to his Court, and when Philip returned to England to persuade Mary Tudor to commit the English army to his war on France, Parma and
his mother went with him. Even at this tender age, Alexander’s grasp of realpolitik was already apparent; after talking with him, Cardinal Pole remarked that the boy should study more religion and morals and less Julius Caesar. When the old Emperor died in 1558, Philip installed Margaret of Parma as Regent of The Netherlands, and had her son brought to Madrid to serve as guarantor of the continuing loyalty of his parents. At Court, in the company of Don Juan—a year younger, despite being his uncle—Farnese devoted himself to horsemanship and martial arts. He was a natural athlete, a brilliant swordsman and an eager and adept student of the theory and practice of warfare, but he was vain and often arrogant and his demands for the full respect and deference due to a prince of the royal blood led to friction. Philip dispatched him to Parma in 1566, where he adopted the style and outward trappings befitting a man who on the death of his father would be the absolute ruler of a rich and powerful duchy, albeit one severely constrained by the presence of a Spanish garrison. Parma continued to improve his warlike skills, by day seeking out every captain and soldier who could add to his theoretical knowledge, and by night venturing with a hand-picked group of companions into the meanest streets of his capital to test their fists and swords against any thieves and cut-throats who crossed their path.

  In 1570, at the age of twenty-four, came his moment of destiny. The forces of Spain and the Vatican came to the aid of Venice in a Christian alliance against the Turks, under the overall command of Don Juan. After desperate appeals to Philip, Parma was allowed to leave his duchy and join Don Juan. The fiery and impetuous commander so fell out with his allies that he threatened to use his Spanish troops against the Venetians rather than the Turks, but Parma intervened to calm the dispute, summoned the Council of War that launched an immediate assault on the Turks and was credited by many with prompting Don Juan to his decisive intervention in the battle. The victory at Lepanto, the greatest sea-battle that had ever been seen, cemented the military reputation of Don Juan, Parma and the naval commander Santa Cruz, but it also made Parma an even greater potential threat to Philip’s imperial ambitions.