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The Spanish Armada and the Ottoman Porte Author(s): Edwarde Barton and Edwin Pears Source: The English Historical Review, Vol. 8, No. 31 (Jul., 1893), pp. 439-466 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/547364 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 20:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oup. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The English Historical Review. http://www.jstor.org 1898 439 The Spani5sdl ArmIada and ihe OttlomanPorte DURING the struggle which is usually taken to have ended with the defeat of the Armada, Queen Elizabeth made serious efforts to obtain assistance from Turkey against Spain. The idea of an alliance with the Porte was a natural one, and if the sugges- tion made to the reigning sultan had been acceptedand carriedinto effect, namely to send a fleet to attack Spain in the Mediterranean, England's task in defending herself would have been made much easier than it was. Again and again during a period of several years the Porte was urged to act with England. The arguments used were unanswerable. Philip had become the most powerful sovereign in Christendom.1 He had made himself master of the Italian states and of the Low Countries,and had the Holy Roman Empire and France completelyunder his influence. Two powers alone resisted him, England and Turkey. 'Make no mistake,' was the drift of Elizabeth's appeal; 'Philip is attacking us now, and if he succeed your turn comes next. Join with us and our arms will probablybe successful. If we are divided,his force is so overwhelmingthat, though we are confidentof success, who knows what the result may be ?' A curious feature of the correspondencebetween the queen and her ministers on the one side and the sultan and his ministers on the other is that from the very outset Elizabeth makes appeal to the Mahometansentiment on the ground that Protestants and Mahometans alike are haters of idolatry. She is ' defenderof the faith against those idolaters who have falsely usurpedthe name of Christ' (veraefidei contra idololatrasfalso Christi nomen profitentes invicta et potentissina propugnatrix). To such an extent were the Turks persuadedof the similarity between Protestantismand Islam that if we are to believe a contemporaryreport, addressed to the emperor, Sinan Pacha told the Roman ambassadorthat to be good Mussulmans all that was wanting to the English was that they should raise a finger and pronounce the Eshed or confession of Qui isto aevo omnium principum christianorum est maximus (Letter of English ambassador to Murad III, 30 Nov, 1588). 440 THE SPANISH ARMADA July faith.2 Before calling attention to such documents as I have been able to find, I may be permitted to give a bare indication of the history of the relations between England and Turkey previousto 1588 in so far as is necessaryto illustrate the correspondence. English traders began early in the sixteenth century to make voyages in the ILevant. As early as 1513 a consul, by name Justiniani, was appointed at Chios. The name recalls the fact that Venetian rule had prevailed in the Archipelago. Persons of the same name, all I believe claiming to be of Chios origin but from a Venetian family, are still to be found at Constantinopleand throughout the western shores of Asia Minor. Seven years later another English consul was appointed at Crete. Several years passed beforenecessity seems to have arisen for the nomination of other consuls. In 1553 Master Anthony Jenkinson, a member of the Russian Company, obtained 'safe conduct or privileges from Sultan Solyman, the great Turke.' Up to this time the Turkshad known little of the northern nations of Europe. On the capture of Constantinople,in 1453, they had found the Genoesein posses- sion of Galata, a fortified town occupying one side of the Golden Horn. They had confirmedthe treaty or capitulationof privileges under which the Genoese enjoyed the rights of exterritorialityas against the Byzantineemperor, and had grantedor confirmedsimilar capitulationsin favour of the Venetians and the French. France, indeed, had for a considerableperiod been the protectorof the sub- jects of most of the European states who found themselves in Turkey. What is now the case in China, where until three years ago France 'protected' all Christian priests and Christian converts, that is, gave them some of the privilegesof French citizen- ship, was the case in the Ottomanempire in the sixteenth century. In the middle of that century, however,the influence of France had given way to that of Spain, and as Englishmen could not look for Spanish protection they workedsuccessfully to obtain capitulations for themselves. The grant of a safe conduct to Jenkinson would probablyhave been successfullyresisted by France had she retained her formerinfluence. The Mediterranean potentates in 1571 were the sultan, the pope, the rulers of Genoa, of Venice, of Malta, and, above all Christian powers, of Spain. In that year the combinedforces of the Christian potentates, commanded by Don John of Austria, checked the growingmaritime powerof the Turksand inflicted upon it a crushing defeat at the battle of Lepanto. But in spite of this defeat the traditional reputationof Turkey as a great naval power still existed. Nor is the reason for this difficult to find. Under Selim II Europe had seen and had regarded as a general calamity 2 Report of Eytzing in 1588 quoted by Baron von Hammer-Purgstall, Hist. de p'Etp.Othom., vii. p. 252, ed. Paris, 1837, 1893 AND THE OTTOMAN PORTE 441 the conquest of Cyprus. The Christianfleets had been defeated in 1538 off Prevesa by HaireddinBarbarossa, and from that year the Turks had been regarded as the most formidable power in the Mediterranean. The Turks themselves believed, says Ianke, that the Christianswould never again venture to stand beforethem in open fight. The failure of Suliman the Magnificentat the siege of Malta in 1565, while a triumph for Christendom,had cost so much bloodand treasure as to be only less disastrousthan a defeat, and had shown how strong was the Turkish power at sea. Then in 1571 had come the defeat of Lepanto, which can now be recog- nised as one of the most decisive and complete victories of which history bears record. No contemporary, however, regarded the naval power of Turkey as having ceased to exist. The Porte had always shown great persistency in the attainment of its objects, had been often defeatedeven on land, but had never ceased to press forward; and each generation since the conquestof Constantinople, a century earlier, had seen the rapid advance of the Turkish arms. The judgment of prudent men who did not believe that Turkey's progresshad been arrestedwas justified by the fact of her continuous advance for another century and a half, although this advance was solely made by her armies. Since 1571 she had had time to recover her power at sea. The islands of the Archipelagoand the shores both of Macedonia and Asia Minor supplied men used to the building of ships, and slaves for their working; while the fanatical courage of the Turks as fighters had been shown to be as great on sea as on land. The defeat of Lepanto,however, had made the Turks themselves less confident,had indeed led to the existenceof the belief which later Turkish writers have often expressed,that Allah, while he has given dominion on land to the Faithful, has left that of the sea to the Giaours. The defeat probably made the task easier for English subjects to obtain privileges from the Porte. England had taken no share in the confederationwhich had given the first serious blow to Turkish progress in Europe. The Grand Turk knew too that, though England was not a Mahometancountry, its sovereign and people had taken part in some kind of religious movement by which the Giaours had been divided. Communications had taken place in the time of Melanchthonbetween that reformerand the Armenian ecclesiastical authorities of the Ottoman empire; and these communications must certainly have been within the knowledgeand with the acquiescence of the Porte. The Eastern or Orthodoxchurch shortly after the capture of the City in 1453 had endeavoured to impose its laws, which in all matters relating to personal status the conquerorshad allowedthem to retain, upon the members of the Armenian church. The latter howeverresisted, and just as twenty years ago the Porte aided the Bulgarians in 442 THE SPANISH ARMADA July setting up an independentchurch, so they aided the Armenians in their quarrel with the Orthodoxpatriarchate. So far, however, as religious sympathy couldexist with Christiansat all, it was sure to be with those who opposedpicture and image worship,and preferred a simple form of religious worshiprather than with the adherents, either of the Orthodoxchurch, or with those of the elder Rome.

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