[5] It is called "Relacion de lo subcedido del armada enemiga del reyno de Inglaterra a este de Portugal con la retirada a su tierra, este año de 1589." MS. Gayangos Library. Transcript in possession of the author. [6] "Memoria do successo da vinda dos Ingreses ao reino de Portugal." Biblioteca National, Lisbon. Pombalina, 196, fol. 271. Transcribed by the author. [7] Mendoza, writing to Philip from London, August 8, 1582, gives one instance of this amongst several. He says: "The Queen lent Dom Antonio £3,000 when he was here, and I understand she peremptorily demands payment of the sum, taking possession of the diamond which was pledged here for a sum of £5,000 lent by merchants, who offer to relinquish their claim to the Queen, if she will lend them £30,000 free of interest for six years out of the bars brought by Drake, which they will repay in five yearly instalments of £6,000 each. So far as I can learn, this talk of the loan is a mere fiction and a cloak under which the Queen may keep the diamond for the £8,000 on the ground that the merchants advanced the £5,000 by her express order, without which they would not have done so. This plan was invented by Cecil in order to prevent Dom Antonio from getting his diamond back again." This diamond is probably identical with the celebrated stone given by Charles I. when Prince of Wales to the Count-Duke of Olivares, favourite of Philip IV., when Charles and Buckingham went on their foolish visit to Madrid. A contemporary account (Soto's MS. in the Academy of History, Madrid) describes the diamond as being of the purest water, weighing eight carats and called "the Portuguese," from its having been one of the crown jewels of Portugal. It had a great pearl pendent from it. [8] See Calendar of Spanish State Papers of Elizabeth, vol. 3, for particulars of them. [9] The first of these, in 1582, commanded by Strozzi, consisted of 55 ships and 5,000 men. Terceira, which was held for Dom Antonio, welcomed it at once, and in the midst of the rejoicings to celebrate the event the Spanish fleet under Santa Cruz appeared and scattered the French like chaff, Strozzi being killed, Antonio barely escaping, and the fleet almost entirely destroyed. The second expedition in the following year under Aymar de Chastes with 6,000 men was, curiously enough, beaten by Santa Cruz in the same place and under exactly similar circumstances ("Un pretendant portugais du xvi. siècle"). [10] It is a curious co-incidence that this gem was long afterwards carried away from England by another fugitive King, James II., who sold it, as Antonio had done, to provide for his needs. It had formerly belonged to Charles the Bold of Burgundy, the great-grandfather of Philip II.