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A FRENCH ARMADA? THE AZORES CAMPAIGNS, 1580–1583*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2012

ALAN JAMES
ALAN JAMES*
Affiliation:
King's College London
*
Department of War Studies, King's College London, London WC2R 2LSalan.2.james@kcl.ac.uk
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Abstract

The Spanish Armada and the battle of Lepanto loom large in a remarkable period of international history shaped to a considerable extent by the deployment of sea power. Yet between 1581 and 1583, France also conducted a large-scale naval operation at great distance. A series of expeditions to the Azores reached a climax with the defeat in battle of a French fleet of sixty ships off the island of São Miguel in July 1582. Acting under the authority of Catherine de Medici and in the name of her rival legal claim to the Portuguese throne, the commander Philippe Strozzi had not only led the most ambitious oceanic operation in French history up to that date and a bid to extend France's overseas empire but a serious challenge to Philip II's union of the Iberian crowns. Yet this was more than just a puzzling anomaly in France's foreign policy. It was also an act of royal authority and the pursuit of reputation and status by the queen mother that was entirely consistent with the domestic priorities of the crown in the context of the Wars of Religion.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

All translations are the author's own except where indicated otherwise.

References

1 Glete, Jan, Warfare at sea, 1500–1650: maritime conflicts and the transformation of Europe (London, 2000), p. 156Google Scholar; ‘Il y a plusieurs voluntaires … On estime qu'il y a en ladicte armée plus de douze cens gentilhommes … Somme: XXXVII compagnies, et LV voyles, [of which twenty are described as ‘pataches’] sans sept vaisseaulx angloys chargez de soldatz fronçoys, … et un ature navire de guerre, … avec sa patache et barque … qui attendent aux Sables d'Olonne.’ It was estimated to be carrying an army of 5,000 soldiers. ‘Estat de l'armée de mer francoyse’, in de Medici, Catherine, Lettres de Catherine de Médicis, ed. Baguenault de Puchesse (11 vols., Paris, 1880–1943) (Lettres), viii, p. 388Google Scholar, henceforth Lettres, and a similar list from the Calendar of State Papers Foreign (CSP Foreign), xvi, p. 67, 6 June 1582.

2 ‘Orden del Rey para que vaya una armada á las islas Terceras á las órdenes de D. Alonso Bazán’, 21 June 1580, in Duro, Cesáreo Fernández, La conquista de las Azores en 1583 (Madrid, 1886), p. 180Google Scholar. Bazán commanded a force of fifteen ships in 1580 which escorted the Indies fleet safely past the Azores, ibid., pp. 10–11.

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6 Guilmartin, John F. Jr, Galleons and galleys (London, 2002), p. 155Google Scholar. The idea that Santa Cruz anticipated developments in modern amphibious warfare is developed in Martinez, Ricardo Cerezo, ‘La conquista de la isla Tercera, 1583’, Revista de Historia Naval, 1 (1983), pp. 5–45Google Scholar, published in a celebratory mood on the four hundredth anniversary of the conquest. Spain's involvement in the Azores campaigns was covered in a detailed account and comprehensive collection of related Spanish documentary sources, Duro, La conquista de las Azores.

7 Though Duro concedes that in July 1582, ‘La desproporción de las fuerzas en batalla tan porfiada enalteció el crédito de D. Alvaro de Bazán como uno de los grandes capitanes de su época’, just as he credits superior maneouvrability on the part of the French ships and the bravery of some of the men in order to accentuate the Spanish achievement. Duro, Cesáreo Fernández, Historia de la armada Española desde la unión de los reinos de Castilla y de Aragón (9 vols., Madrid, 1895–1903), ii, pp. 314, 319, and 320Google Scholar; and see the assessment by Cruz, Santa in his account, A discourse of that which happened in the battell betweene the two Navies of Spaine and Portugall at the Islands of Azores (London, 1582), p. 9Google Scholar.

8 McDermott, James, England and the Spanish Armada: the necessary quarrel (New Haven, CT, 2005), p. 136Google Scholar. Typically, Gordon K. McBride says that France, presumably in contrast to Elizabethan England, was ‘virtually impotent’ in the late sixteenth century, ‘Elizabethan foreign policy in microcosm: the Portuguese pretender, 1580–1589’, Albion, 5 (1973), pp. 193–210, at p. 208.

9 de La Roncière, Charles, Histoire de la marine française (6 vols., Paris, 1899–1932), iv, pp. 167–205Google Scholar, esp. p. 179. This remains the only full study of French involvement in the Azores.

10 Strozzi conducted himself as an ‘homme advantureux, furieulx et désespéré, mais non comme un grand cappitaine’, qu. in ibid., p. 188. Don Antonio is similarly criticized. Charles and Paul Bréard say he ‘fit preuve en toute cette affaire de faiblesse, d'insouciance et de légèrté’, Documents relatifs à la marine normande (Rouen, 1889), pp. 249–50.

11 Lettres, viii, p. 28, and note. The main orders, written in the queen's hand, refer directly to Madeira and the Azores, with Brazil as an additional aim for which separate orders would be received from the king. In the note, appended on behalf of the king by the secrétaire d'état, Villeroy, Strozzi was ordered to follow the orders as laid out ‘according to his judgment and in accordance with the intentions of the queen’.

12 According to d'Aubigné, Don Antonio promised Catherine de Medici ‘une partie de ses seigneuries esloignées pour ses prétensions’, Agrippa d'Aubigné, Histoire universelle, ed. André Thierry (repr., 10 vols., Geneva, 1981–99), vi, p. 270.

13 Lestringant, Frank, Le Huguenot et le sauvage: l'Amérique et la controverse coloniale en France au temps des guerres de religion (Paris, 2004), pp. 168–9Google Scholar.

14 Julien, Charles-André, Les voyages de découverte et les premiers établissements, xv–xvi siècles (2nd edn, Paris, 1979), pp. 270–5Google Scholar. See, also, the very sensitive treatment by Knecht, R. J., Catherine de' Medici (London, 1998), pp. 210–11Google Scholar; and, Wanegffelen, Thierry, Catherine de Medici: le pouvoir au féminin (Paris, 2005), pp. 378–9Google Scholar, who says only that she was pursuing her claim to the Portuguese crown.

15 Julien, , Voyages, p. 271; Lestringant, Huguenot, p. 173Google Scholar.

16 Duro felt no need to elaborate. For Catherine de Medici, ‘celosa del engrandecimiento de la Casa de Austria’, the motivation was simply mischief. Duro, Armada Española, p. 303.

17 Henri III defended his own support of Portugal to Gregory XIII simply as an obligation to an ally. As for his mother, ‘elle ne peut faire de moins pour la conservation de son bon droit, que de faire quelque acte qui serve d'interruption de prescription contre le Roy d'Espagne, à fin qu'à l'advenir il ne puisse dire avoir possedé le Royaume de Portugal paisiblement et sans aucune contradiction’, de Foix, Paul, Les lettres de messire Paul de Foix, archevesque de Tolose … amabassadeur pour le roi auprès du pape Grégoire XIII … (Paris, 1628), p. 464Google Scholar. On 23 May 1582, a confident Catherine de Medici swept aside fears expressed about Anjou's designs on the United Provinces and the Azores expedition suggesting that they would ‘remetre en réputation cet royaume’, Lettres, viii, p. 33.

18 For the statement of her claim, ‘qui ne doibt estre trouve estrange’, and her right to pursue it, see ‘Remonstrances et protestations de la Tres chrestienne Catharine …’, Bibliothèque Nationale (BN), Paris, MSS Fonds français (BN Fr.), 16121, fos. 701–3. She claimed a descent from Afonso III in the thirteenth century through her mother. See also, Knecht, , Catherine de' Medici, p. 207Google Scholar.

19 To Saint Gouart, 23 Sept. 1581, Lettres, vii, p. 400.

20 Knecht, , Catherine de' Medici, pp. 210–11Google Scholar.

21 Referring to ‘la grand force que le roy d'Espaigne a mis ensemble et qui sont prestes ausi tost que nous à partir’, to De Brissac, 20 Mar. 1582, Lettres, viii, p. 16.

22 ‘Cet que entreprenés n'est pas pour fayre une raflade: c'èt pour vous en rendre le metre et le conserver à jamès’; the specific object, however, is not mentioned in this letter, Lettres, x, p. 21.

23 To de Ferrier, 22 Sept. 1582, Lettres, viii, p. 61.

24 To Matignon, 19 Jan. 1583, Lettres, viii, p. 79. ‘Desfaite du seigneur Stroszi sur mer, par les Hespagnols’, in Pierre de L'Estoile, Registre-Journal du règne de Henri III, ed. Madeleine Lazard and Gilbert Schrenk (repr., 6 vols., Geneva, 1996–2006), iv, pp. 30–4.

25 Santa Cruz initially arrived with twenty-eight large ships and a number of smaller vessels (to be followed later by nineteen further ships, two galleons, and twelve galleys). Opinion was divided about the wisdom of taking on Santa Cruz at sea. ‘Relation contemporaine de l'expédition naval des Açores et de la défaite de Strozzi’, Lettres, viii, pp. 389–96; and see the very critical assessment in ‘Relation du voyage et de la défaite de Monsieur de Strossi, en 1582’, ibid., pp. 397–405. According to one account, it was Don Antonio himself, and not Strozzi, who insisted on sailing directly to São Miguel. This is suggested in ‘Relation du voyage et de la défaicte de monsieur de Strossi’, Lettres, viii, p. 397. La Roncière says that De Brissac refused to go to Madeira because he did not want to sack an island he was promised as vice-roy, La Roncière, Marine française, p. 179.

26 Santiago Fernández Conti and Félix Labrador Arroyo, ‘La organización de la campaña naval de las Azores de 1582: corte y territorio en la monarquía de Felipe II’, Hispania, 69 (2009), pp. 739–68.

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28 Carroll, Stuart, Blood and violence in early modern France (Oxford, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sandberg, Brian, Warrior pursuits: noble culture and civil conflict in early modern France (Baltimore, MD, 2010)Google Scholar; and see Davies, Jonathan, ed., Aspects of violence in Renaissance Europe (Aldershot, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

29 According to d'Aubigné, Strozzi, Lanssac, François de Richelieu, and the ‘baron de la Garde’ (Antoine Escalin des Aymars), frequently met with Vimioso. D'Aubigné, Histoire universelle, vi, p. 145; ‘Le Conte de Vimioso a souvent traicté avecques messrs de Lanssac et de St-Luc’, Bellière to Catherine de Medici, 3 Apr. 1581, Lettres, vii, p. 470; according to Joseph Bergin, Richelieu (the father of the famous cardinal) lent money to Don Antonio in 1582, The rise of Richelieu (Manchester, 1997), p. 36 n. 75; Henri III claimed to have asked Strozzi early in 1580 to begin raising a fleet in Brittany, Henri III to Saint Gouart, 11 Sept. 1580, Lettres, vii, p. 476.

30 Antoine Scalin to the queen mother, from Angra, 13 June 1581, BN MSS Portugais 66, fo. 46; and see letters of thanks to the queen mother from Terceira for Scalin's arrival, ibid., fos. 49–65.

31 Puchesse, Baguenault de, ‘Introduction’, Lettres, viii, pp. viii–xixGoogle Scholar; Roncière, La, Marine française, p. 173Google Scholar.

32 To Strozzi, 16 July 1581, Lettres, vii, p. 383.

33 To Matignon, 21 Nov. and 28 Dec. 1581, Lettres, vii, pp. 417, 421.

34 Pedro de Valdes's reputation has suffered in the same way as Strozzi's. He was accused by Duro of recklessness and disobeying orders for attacking before the relief force had arrived. Duro, Armada Española, p. 305.

35 de Thou, Jacque-Auguste, Histoire universelle … depuis 1543 jusqu'en 1607. Traduite sur l'édition Latine de Londres … (16 vols., London, 1734), viii, p. 494Google Scholar; see the anonymous report from Lisbon of 13 Apr. 1581 announcing the French capture of ‘un navire qui venais de Perou’, BN MSS Portugais 66, fo. 30.

36 ‘… e então se fôram os francezes na volta do mar sem apparecerem mais: indo-se á Terceira a concertar dos muitos buracos que levavam, e sanear suas quebras e curar a gente ferida’, in ‘Combate naval com a armada franceza commandada por Mr de Landroi, em frente de Ponta Delgada aos 23 de Maio de 1582 (Inedito)’, Gaspar Fructuoso, ed., Archivo dos Açores (2 vols., Ponta Delgada, 1880), ii, pp. 399–407, at 405–6.

37 Thou, De, Histoire, pp. 579–81Google Scholar. La Roncière suggests that De Silva's animosity stemmed from a distrust of French Huguenots because of their previous attempt to settle the island of Flores. Roncière, La, Marine française, p. 173Google Scholar. This is unlikely given the animosity the Rochelais felt toward Landreau who they considered a traitor, Discours de la Prinse de l'Isle de Rhé par le seigneur du Landreau (n.p., 1575).

38 De Thou suggests that over 2,000 men and eight ships were lost. Thou, De, Histoire, p. 590Google Scholar.

39 To Mauvissière, 5 Sept. 1582, Lettres, viii, p. 56. Within days, she was writing to a French captain promising payment for two ships he had been equipping for her; to Captaine Tiercelen, 10 Sept. 1582, BN Fr. 3351, fo. 37.

40 ‘[L]e quart du port de xvii cens tonneaulx … et gallions pour servir à voille et à rame’, to Danzay, 13 Nov. 1582, Lettres, viii, p. 71.

41 Glete, Warfare, p. 156.

42 Report from Villeroy to Henri III, 12 Sept. 1582, Lettres, viii, p. 405.

43 Strozzi to Matignon, 16 Apr. 1582, BN Fr. 3291, fo. 170; and in Bréard, Marine normande, p. 242.

44 In 1579, Walsingham received a report about Strozzi, Lanssac, Landreau, and others planning a fleet of ‘forty fighting ships of war’ though its leader and its purpose were unknown. 9 Feb. 1579, CSP Foreign, xvi, p. 413.

45 Strozzi himself referred to ‘nostre voyage pour la service de la Reyne’, to Matignon, 30 Jan. 1582, BN Fr. 3291, fo. 169. But see the accusation by Guy de Lanssac of Strozzi: ‘Il na soldat en son armee qui ne soit leve de par le Roy, Il n'a capp[itaine] qui naye sa commission. Il na maistre de camp qui n'aye son pouvoir, et luy le sien de sa majeste’, BN Fr. 3351, fo. 21. And see an example of the king's orders to Matignon on details regarding the preparation of the fleet, 27 Mar. 1582, BN Fr. 3291, fo. 125, and his anxiety over the delays in the weeks before sailing, 21 May 1582, ibid., fo. 129.

46 According to D'Aubigné, Anjou desired the Portuguese throne himself, though his failure to provide the promised Dutch relief force betrayed Don Antonio and led to Strozzi's defeat. D'Aubigné, , Histoire universelle, pp. 141, 271–2Google Scholar.

47 To St Gouart, 8 Feb. 1581, Lettres, vii, pp. 354–5.

48 Roux, Nicholas Le, ‘Guerre civile, entreprises maritimes et identité nobiliaire: les imaginations de Guy de Lanssac’, Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 65 (2003), pp. 529–69Google Scholar.

49 Sandberg, Brian, ‘“Through naval practice and the association with foreigners”: French nobles’ participation in Mediterranean religious struggles, 1598–1635', Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 16 (2006), p. 221Google Scholar.

50 On Strozzi's career, see H. T. S. de Torsay, ‘La Vie, mort, et tombeau du haut et puissant seigneur Philippe de Strozzi’, of 1608, in Cimber, M. L. and Danjou, F., eds., Archives curieuses de l'histoire de France, 1er série (14 vols., Paris, 1834–7), ix, pp. 403–60Google Scholar.

51 Glete, , Warfare, pp. 146–7Google Scholar.

52 McGrath, John T., The French in early Florida (Gainesville, FL, 2000)Google Scholar; Alan James, ‘Between “Huguenot” and “royal”: naval affairs during the Wars of Religion’, in Keith Cameron, Mark Greengrass, and Penny Roberts, eds., The adventure of religious pluralism in early modern France (Bern, 2000), pp. 101–12.

53 Didier Poton, ‘Philippe Duplessis-Mornay et la mer: discours au roi Henri III sur les moyens de diminuer l'Espagnol (1584)’, in Acerra, Martine and Martinière, Guy, eds., Coligny, les protestants et la mer (Paris, 1997), pp. 145–54Google Scholar.

54 Henri III to the city of La Rochelle, 21 Jan. 1583, BN Fr. 3351, fo. 51; to Matignon, 20 Feb. 1583, Lettres, viii, p. 89.

55 The legal authority of the admiral of France covered Picardy and Normandy, which was distinct from the admiralties of Guyenne and of Brittany. On the Guise in Normandy, see Carroll, Stuart, Noble power during the French Wars of Religion (Cambridge, 1998)Google Scholar; on his preparations, 6 June 1582, CSP Foreign, xvi, p. 69.

56 Lanssac to Matignon, 13 May 1582, BN Fr. 3351, fo. 21.

57 He found himself ‘exclus de l'un et de l'autre’, ibid., fo. 21.

58 Le Roux, ‘Imaginations’, pp. 537, 540, 543–4.

59 According to Brantôme, Strozzi had initially wanted Lanssac to accompany him ‘mais, estant vers Bourdeaux, il luy trouva quelque querelle d'Allemaigne, aucuns disent venant de luy, autres de la reyne mère, autres du mareschal de Matignon, autres du roy’, Œuvres complètes de Pierre de Bourdeille seigneur de Brantôme, ed. Ludovic Lalanne (11 vols., Paris, 1864–82), vi, pp. 89–90; a report to the English court in May 1582 suggested that Lanssac's involvement in the expedition ‘will not please many, because he is held suspect’, and on 6 June that he ‘is not permitted in any way to go in this army by sea’. 3 May 1582, CSP Foreign, p. 4; 6 June 1582, ibid., p. 67.

60 Greengrass, Mark, Governing passions: peace and reform in the French kingdom, 1576–1585 (Oxford, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Holt, Mack P., The Duke of Anjou and the politique struggle during the Wars of Religion (Cambridge, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 To Matignon, May 1582, Lettres, viii, p. 29.

63 ‘[T]el retardement mest tres prejudiciable tant acause de la deffiance quen preignent mes subjects de la relligion pretendue refformee lesquelz s'en plaignent tous les jours et la foulle que mon peuple en recoit que pour la craintte que jay quil nous prive du fruict que nous esperons’, BN Fr. 3291, fo. 129.

64 ‘[M]esmes si besoing est permetre que le peuple y cours a son de tocquesain affin que mon voulloir soit affectue et ledict peuple descharge de lopression qu'il en recoit dont aussy ceulx de la relligion pretendue refformee prennent telle deffiance qu'il nest jour quilz ne men facent plaincte’, BN Fr. 3291, fo. 130; and ibid., fos. 120, 122, 126; and see Bréard, , Marine normande, pp. 243–7Google Scholar.

65 Roberts, Penny, ‘Royal authority and justice during the French Religious Wars’, Past and Present, 184 (2004), pp. 3–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Christin, Olivier, La paix de religion: l'autonomisation de la raison politique au xvi siècle (Paris, 1997)Google Scholar.

66 Etienne Taillemite, ‘Les ordonnances de marine au XVIe siècle’, in Philippe Masson and Michel Vergé-Franceschi, eds., La France et la mer au siècle des grandes découvertes (Paris, 1993), pp. 55–68.

67 James, Alan, The navy and government in early modern France, 1572–1661 (Woodbridge, 2004)Google Scholar; and see the letters from Henri III in Feb. 1583 in which he orders Joyeuse to stop Spanish ships reportedly currently in Breton ports and to others insisting that they must respect his authority, BN Fr. 3306, fos. 66–74.

68 He negotiated with the duke d'Épernon (a rival to Guise in Normandy and Picardy and the successor to Joyeuse as admiral of France), De Brissac, Branças-Villars (a client of Joyeuse, soon to fall under Guise influence, and also future admiral), and Richelieu, who was one of a number of investors in maritime operations and an active backer of the 1583 expedition, Bergin, Richelieu, pp. 37–8.

69 Forty large warships, including five galleons, two galleasses, twelve galleys and a host of smaller ships, ‘Voyage de la Tercere, faite par le commandeur de Chaste’, in Thevenot, Melchisedec, ed., Relations de divers voyages curieux (2 vols., Paris, 1696), ii, pp. 2–4Google Scholar. According to De Thou, De Chattes only had 600 men and there were only 700 Frenchmen waiting for support on Terceira. The Spanish fleet included sixty ships, along with the galley fleet which included newly built large three-masted galleys for ocean-going campaigns, thirty other ‘big’ vessels, and countless support vessels, with 10,000 Spanish soldiers, 1,500 Germans, two Italian companies and one Portuguese. Thou, De, Histoire, pp. 93–6Google Scholar. The account by Santa Cruz reported only thirty ‘bigge ships’ but also including ‘seven flat bottomed barkes to land people’, 8,976 soldiers, 3,823 mariners, and a further 2,300 soldiers picked up from Miguel, São, Relation of the expongnable attempt and conquest of the Ylande of Tercera (London, 1583), p. 1Google Scholar.

70 At Angra, they reportedly took twelve French and two English ships, along with sixteen Portuguese ships of various sizes that had sacked Cape Verde the previous year under the command of a Portuguese from Madeira.

71 Henri III to Villeroy, Oct. 1582, Lettres, viii, p. 407; and Aug. 1583, ibid., viii, p. 121, note.

72 ‘Instruction donnee au commandr de Chattes’, 6 May 1583, BN Fr. 16121, fos. 456–8.

73 De Chatte, ‘Voyage de la Tercere’, pp. 7–9, in Thevenot, ed., Relations de divers voyages.

74 ‘Discours de la prinse de la Tercière’, BN Fr. 16121, fo. 460.

75 Among the executed was Manuel Serradas who commanded the Portuguese ships and who led an attack on Madeira the previous year. And see Cueto, who argues that Philip II feared the Jesuits and their influence. Cueto, Ronald, ‘1580 and all that … : Philip II and the politics of the Portuguese succession’, Portuguese Studies, 8 (1992), pp. 150–69Google Scholar.

76 On the organization of violence at sea, see the works of Jan Glete including, most recently, ‘Warfare, entrepreneurship and the fiscal-military state’, in Tallett, Frank and Trim, D. J. B., eds., European warfare, 1350–1750 (Cambridge, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and on the assumption that the strategic purpose of sea power was always imperial expansion, see N. A. M. Rodger, ‘Sea-power and empire, 1688–1793’, in Wm Roger Louis, ed., The Oxford history of the British Empire (5 vols., Oxford, 1998–99), ii, pp. 169–83, and elsewhere. He says this was an anachronism even as late as the eighteenth century.

77 J. H. Elliott, ‘The Spanish monarchy and the kingdom of Portugal, 1580–1640’, in Mark Greengrass, ed., Conquest and coalescence: the shaping of the state in early modern Europe (London, 1991), pp. 48–67.

78 Parker, , Grand strategy, pp. 102, 167Google Scholar.

79 As described, for the seventeenth century, by Cornette, Joël, Le roi de guerre: essai sur la souveraineté dans la France du grand siècle (Paris, 1993)Google Scholar.

80 He used ‘viels mots de philosophe au temps de résolution’, according to the author of the ‘Relation du voyage et de la défaicte …’, Lettres, viii, p. 403; Roncière, La, Marine française, p. 182Google Scholar.

81 Waiting for news to arrive, she hoped to hear that De Chatte had held Terceira ‘car si nous avons ce bon heur de la garder, j'espère que ce nous sera plus de moyen de parvenir au bien de la paiz pour toute la chrestienté’, to Longlée, 6 Sept. 1583, Lettres, viii, p. 141. As late as 1585, she maintained her pretension and wished to receive something in a settlement with Spain, ibid., p. 233.