When Don Antonio fled from Portugal in 1581, Elizabeth and Catharine de
Medici vied with each other in the welcome they extended to him. The
English queen gave him a pension, and he was splendidly lodged at Eton
College, Somerset House, and elsewhere at her expense. Hopes were held
out to him that a fleet should be raised in England for him to hold
those isles of the Azores which continued favourable to him and capture
the rest. He was encouraged to pledge his priceless jewels, the finest
in the world, and whilst his money lasted, privateers and ships were
busily fitted out in his name. But though most of the gems were
ultimately juggled into the hands of Elizabeth and Leicester, the queen
had always stopped short of allowing a hostile fleet openly to leave her
shores to attack Philip in the pretender’s interest.
Antonio at last got tired of this, and with some difficulty fled to
France. There he found Catharine more ready. He promised her the great
empire of Brazil in exchange for aid, and in 1582 a fleet was got
together under her auspices, commanded by her cousin, Philip Strozzi. In
August the small Spanish garrison at St. Michaels was surrounded by 1500
Frenchmen on shore, and Strozzi’s fleet of about 40 ships lay off to
blockade the island. Suddenly Santa Cruz’s squadron appeared, somewhat
stronger than Strozzi’s. Antonio seems to have lost heart and fled in
the night with some of the ships; the English privateers which were
expected to join Strozzi did not put in an appearance; Santa Cruz fell
upon the French fleet and utterly destroyed it, Strozzi being killed;
and every prisoner who fell into the hands of the Spaniards instantly
slaughtered. They had no commission from the King of France, and were
treated as pirates. But Catharine was bent upon troubling her late
son-in-law to the utmost, and Antonio still had jewels to pledge, so in
the following year another fleet was got together in France, under Aymar
de Chaste, to hold Terceira. The French were received with open arms by
the islanders who were firm for Antonio, but Santa Cruz swooped upon
this fleet, as he had done on the previous one, with a similar result,
and Catharine became convinced that the Azores, the key as they were to
Philip’s western empire, were his least vulnerable point whilst his
fleets held the sea. But this attitude of the French queen and her son,
and the open patronage and aid she gave to her younger son, Alençon, in
his attempts with Huguenot help to seize the sovereignty of the
Netherlands, convinced Philip that, unless something was done to
withstand the advance of the Protestant power in France, he would in
time find himself surrounded by opponents on all sides. He did his best
to dispose of some of his personal enemies. He approved of Babington’s
plot to kill Elizabeth, he subsidised many unsuccessful attempts to
murder Don Antonio, and certainly two to assassinate the Prince of
Orange, one nearly successful, before the final foul blow was struck by