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Queen Elizabeth and the Siege of Rouen, 1591

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

R. B. Wernham
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Extract

The foreign policy of England from 1589 until 1595 was dominated by the fear that Spain would take advantage of the French civil wars and the friendship of the Catholic League to secure control of the Channel coast from Brest to Calais. How dangerous this would be to England, we may easily judge from the fact that, years earlier, Menendez had seen in the establishment of a Spanish naval base at the Scilly Isles a means at once of crippling English sea-power and commerce and of rendering easy an invasion of the country. Indeed, the least to be feared should the French ports fall into Spanish hands would be, as the veteran English captain Sir Roger Williams said, that “then must we at the least keep garrisons in all our port towns and send our ships royal in good numbers always to convoy our merchants.” The danger was most acute between 1590 and 1592, when the invasions of France by Parma from the east and the presence of a Spanish army in Brittany to the westward confronted English statesmen with a peculiarly difficult and complex problem. It was this problem that the expedition to Rouen in 1591 was intended to solve.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 15 , January 1932 , pp. 163 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1932

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References

page 163 note 1 Cf. Corbett, , Drake and the Tudor Navy, i. 197–8Google Scholar.

page 163 note 2 S.P. France, xxii. f. 130.

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page 165 note 1 He did, however, show some interest in the Rouen expedition, chiefly owing to his connection with the ambassador Unton, : cf. Union's Corresp., pp. 143, 177Google Scholar; Hatfield MSS., iv. 145–6.

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page 167 note 2 S.P. France, xxiv. f. 211; Rymer, xvi. 102.

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page 170 note 1 Union's Corresp., pp. 55–7, 59–61, 72–6, 78–81, 86–93, 110–12; S.P. France, xxv. ff. 261, 378; Hatfield MSS., iv. 139–41; Carey's Memoirs, pp. 15–19; Lettres Missives, iii. 832–9.

page 170 note 2 S.P. France, xxvi. ff. 27, 48, 114–17; Devereux, i. 255.

page 171 note 1 Union's Corresp., pp. 140–2; S.P. France, xxvi. f. 223.

page 172 note 1 Journal of the Siege, pp. 40, 58; Union's Corresp., pp. 179–83; S.P. France, xxvi. ff. 227, 233, 292–6.

page 173 note 1 Union's Corresp., pp. 188–92, 241–2, 259–60.

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page 175 note 2 Union's Corresp., pp. 334–6, 349–50. 353–8, 360–3, 367–70, 379–83, 390–2; S.P. France, xxvii. ff. 280–3.

page 175 note 3 Union's Corresp., pp. 413–16.

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page 179 note 2 Cf. Cheyney, , Hist, of England, ii. 27–31Google Scholar: Cal. of Wynn Papers, nos. 181–4 (for discontent against service in Ireland). The financial straits of the English Crown at this time are emphasized in the Bridgwater MSS. (H.M.C., 11th Rep., Pt. vii), now in the Huntington Library at San Marino.

page 179 note 3 Ibid., i. 306.

page 179 note 4 S.P. France, xxiii. f. 138.