History This Exceptionally Rare Miniature

DETAILED CASE Waverley 1: History This exceptionally rare miniature commemorates the most celebrated event of Elizabeth I’s reign, the failed invasion of England by Philip II’s ‘invincible Armada’ in the summer of 1588. As such, it represents in visual form the significant achievement of the monarch and the state in preventing Spanish success, and a watershed moment in English (and British) naval history and national and European history per se. Importantly, in terms of the history of naval warfare, the Armada campaign was the first occasion when the great gun played the chief part in a naval battle. The Spanish Armada of 1588 was a major amphibious assault on England designed to remove Elizabeth I from the throne and return the kingdom to Roman Catholicism. Success would have made Philip II overlord of much of western Europe, cementing Spain’s position as a continental superpower. For England, and Elizabeth I in particular, the stakes could not be higher. Philip’s great fleet of 130 ships and 18,000 men set sail from Lisbon on 30 May 1588. Its objective was to meet with a large Spanish army in Netherlands and mount an invasion of southern England. The English responded with a force that outnumbered Spain, but the Spanish ships were larger and more heavily armed. The balance of naval power was delicately poised and much depended on tactics, nerve and (as it turned out) luck. When the Armada was spotted off the English coast, signal beacons were lit to inform London of its impending approach. Skirmishes followed as the Armada neared Calais and anchored there. At this point the English employed fireships in a night attack to break up the Spanish formation before engaging the Armada at the Battle of Gravelines on 8 August. It was here that English tactics told, preventing the essential Spanish naval–military rendezvous. The Armada was then pursued into the North Sea. While these events unfolded, Elizabeth I rallied her troops at Tilbury, both by her presence and by her celebrated speech, in preparation to repulse the Spanish landing. In reality, however, the danger had passed, but the queen’s personal intervention (unprecedented by an English queen regnant) in the military campaign would not only underline her role as the defender of Protestant Europe but also identify the defeat of the Armada as a personal, as well as national, triumph. The English harried the Spanish in the North Sea as they tried to make their way round Scotland to return home. Already short of food and water, the Armada was devastated by Atlantic storms that drove ships on to the west coast of Scotland and Ireland. For Elizabeth and her supporters, the victory was evidence of divine intervention in support of the Protestant cause. Although the Spanish threat remained, the fear of invasion ebbed away and the reputation of England, its monarch and its navy received a considerable boost. Indeed, the defeat of the Spanish Armada has come to be seen as a defining moment in the rise of Britain to later maritime greatness. The victory – as much a combination of overly complex Spanish plans and poor weather as a signal of English naval superiority – has been returned to time and again in moments of subsequent national crisis as a totemic emblem of resilience against tyranny. Detailed description There are only two large-scale miniatures known that represent the Armada events as pure marine paintings: the present example and the one held in the National Maritime Museum (NMM), Greenwich (PAJ3949). Their compositions are very similar but not identical. Indeed, as an outstanding historical document, the merits of the present work (in comparison to the NMM version) are the greater detail (including inscriptions) within, and legibility of, the composition. Both include separate events associated with the Armada campaign; the fight between the English fleet and the Spanish Armada, the launch of English fireships (7 August) on the anchored Spanish fleet off Calais) and the battle off Gravelines (8 August). 1 Both include representations of the southern coast of England, with English troops assembled, and both include Dutch, as well as English and Spanish ships, underlining the Dutch Protestant ‘sea beggars’ role in harrying the Armada in and after the battle of Gravelines. Only the present miniature alludes to Elizabeth I’s famous visit to Tilbury. In the present work, the Spanish lie to the left off the coasts near Calais. Some of the ships are still arriving in the far distance, some are at anchor in the middle distance with the English fireships approaching. In the left middle ground, a few Spanish ships confront an attacking English warship, and the fireships, with their bow guns. These include a Spanish flagship in the centre right, flying Spanish flags (an approximation of Philip II’s royal arms on the Burgundian ragged cross of the Spanish Netherlands) and a Burgundian ragged-cross white flag on her bonaventure mizzen. This is likely to represent the San Martin of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, overall commander of the Armada at the head of the Squadron of Portugal. In the left foreground, in action, are two of the Armada’s four Neapolitan galleasses (galleys with broadside guns). Historically, two of these survived to reach safety at Le Harve and Santander, one went aground off Calais, and the fourth, the Girona, was wrecked with heavy loss of life in early September 1588, on Lacada Point, County Antrim. The large ship to the left of the galleys, with the inscribed religious ensign at the stern, represents the San Mateo, of ‘Maestro del Campo’ Don Diego Pimentel in the tercio of Sicily (Squadron of Portugal). This was the only major Armada vessel except the San Martin to which the Latin abbreviation S MA…TUS could refer. With the San Felipe, this ship was captured on 9 August by the Dutch under the vice-admiral of Holland, Pieter van der Does, after both ships ran aground on the Flemish banks. Part of the banner of ‘Christ on the Cross’ shown flying from the San Mateo’s main-topmast rigging survives in the Lakenhal Museum, Leiden. The fact that the small two-masted Dutch vessel harrying the San Mateo on the left bears the lion rampant of Holland on its stern supports this identification. The English fleet is represented centre and right, the majority at anchor off the English coast, but with one ship advancing on, and firing at, the Spanish galleasses in the foreground. The Ark Royal, flagship of the English Lord Admiral and commander-in-chief, Charles Howard (2nd Baron Howard of Effingham), is also under sail towards enemy ships in the middle distance. The Ark Royal flies the Royal Standard at the main mast, an approximation of his personal standard as Lord Admiral at the fore and the prominent St George’s crosses on sails and other flags (the NMM version is much less defined and less prominent). In the right distance, Armada warning beacons can be clearly seen burning on the southern English coast. On shore in the middle ground, an aristocratic man and woman on horseback are attended by soldiers (this important detail is not in the NMM version), which alludes to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth I’s lieutenant commanding the English defence on land and to the queen herself, and her famous visit and speech to the army at Tilbury (7 and 8 August) during the campaign. In the bottom right corner, English troops are shown on a coastal eminence, a feature in related prints (see discussion under Waverley 3). They include an officer in white holding aloft a flag bearing a St George’s cross (not present in the NMM version) and the royal arms of Elizabeth I, with their distinctive lion and dragon supporters. Its prominence, alongside the proximity of other English flags with the St George’s cross and the figure of the queen, makes the whole composition more emphatically a celebration of an English victory than the NMM version. Waverley 2: Aesthetics As previously stated, there are only two known versions of the Armada miniature. The present is signed by the unidentified monogrammist ‘V.H.E’. The significant difference in style points towards different artists from the Netherlandish School. Only one other miniature bearing this monogram is known (a landscape with a view of Antwerp). The miniature 2 discussed here is more precise in style and more legible than the NMM version, and thus more specifically informative of the known events of 1588 (see Waverley 1). It is more expressly Dutch in style, with an inscription (top centre) in Dutch, ‘SPAENSCHE ARMAD/INT IAR 1588’, most likely to emphasise the Dutch role in defeating the Armada. Given that many Dutch artists were working in, or connected to, England at the time, it is possible that the work was commissioned by an English patron with Dutch connections, which may well explain the proliferation of English/St George’s Cross flags alongside the representation of Elizabeth I. The NMM version appears to be a derivative and looser ‘court’ production, most likely by a Flemish artist, with an inscription in French (top centre) suggesting that it was a diplomatic gift to James I or one of his court. The present work is in excellent condition, is lively and vibrant in colour, with a golden sunrise/sunset to the left contrasting with the darker, blue skies to the right, against which the smoke of the warning beacons can be seen in the distance. The NMM version is more subtle in overall tone but also has substantial areas, particularly in the middle ground, that are very faded.

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