The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - November 08, 2026


PREVIEW： Epochs #288 ｜ Elizabeth I - Part 4

FREEMIUM： Chronicles #70 ｜ Prometheus Bound with Stelios Panagiotou

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00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome back to Epochs. In this episode I shall be continuing my story all about Queen
00:00:24.760 Elizabeth I, good Queen Bess, the second daughter of Henry VIII, who ruled over something of
00:00:31.560 a golden age, considered a bit of a golden age. Last time, if you remember, we had finished
00:00:36.840 talking about the Spanish Armada, which took place in 1588, and the period of her reign,
00:00:43.640 a bit over ten years, after that, when she's old or older, that's sort of considered the
00:00:50.760 the main part of the Golden Age. If there's a Golden Age within Queen Elizabeth's Golden
00:00:55.720 Age, it's that period of it, because sort of the threat, the spectre of Spain and Spanish
00:01:02.220 invasion had passed. And so people can sort of enjoy the idea that they're not likely
00:01:09.180 to be invaded or won't be invaded by Spain. So yeah, as I say, something of a Golden Age.
00:01:14.460 I think if you were an average peasant in the late 16th century, it might not have felt
00:01:19.720 like much of a golden age. Life would have been as difficult as always. But nonetheless, I'll be
00:01:25.960 reading from Winston Churchill's History of the English-Speaking People. I mean, this chapter he
00:01:29.640 calls Gloriana. That's what he entitles this chapter as. Just, you know, glory. The glory days.
00:01:37.280 Glory days. And of course, I'll be reading from Professor Sir Charles Oman. So let's get into it.
00:01:43.760 Let's start with Churchill this week. He says this, quote,
00:01:46.400 with 1588 which is just shorthand for the spanish armada with 1588 the crisis of the reign was
00:01:53.420 passed england had emerged from the armada year as a first class power she had resisted the weight
00:02:00.840 of the mightiest empire that had been seen since roman times her people awoke to a consciousness
00:02:07.540 of their greatness and the last year of elizabeth's reign saw a welling up of national
00:02:12.960 energy and enthusiasm focused upon the person of the Queen. Yeah, she was in her later reign,
00:02:19.060 certainly, or most of her reign, but certainly in the later reign, she was idolised. I mean,
00:02:23.880 perhaps not by some hardline Catholics or, in fact, hardline, hardline Anabaptist-style
00:02:30.380 Calvinist Protestants, but by most people, it seems. Well, that's the impression we get.
00:02:35.340 Most people worshipped the ground she walked on in some ways, certainly at court. Churchill goes
00:02:41.120 on saying, in the year following the Armada, the first three books were published of Spencer's
00:02:47.100 Fairy Queen, in which Elizabeth is hymned as Gloriana. Poets and cultures alike paid their
00:02:54.480 homage to the sovereign, who symbolized the great achievement. Elizabeth had schooled a generation
00:03:00.600 of Englishmen. The success of the seamen pointed to the way, the sailors at sea in the Spanish
00:03:07.000 Armada, their success pointed the way to wide opportunities of winning wealth and fame in
00:03:13.100 daring expeditions. In 1589, Richard Hacklett published his magnificent book, The Principal
00:03:21.280 Navigations, Traffics and Discoveries of the English Nation. Here, in their own words,
00:03:27.140 the audacious navigators tell their story, speaks for the thrusting spirit of the age,
00:03:32.200 and when he proclaims that the English nation quote in searching the most opposite corners
00:03:37.900 and quarters of the world and to speak plainly encompassing the vast globe of the earth more
00:03:43.220 than once have exceeded all the nations and peoples of the earth end quote before the rain
00:03:48.260 came to a close another significant enterprise took its beginning for years past Englishmen
00:03:54.120 had been probing their way through to the east round the Cape of Good Hope and overland across
00:03:59.640 the expanses of the Middle East. Their ventures led to the founding of the East India Company.
00:04:05.260 At the start, it was a small and struggling affair, with a capital of only £72,000.
00:04:11.500 Dazzling dividends were to be won from this investment. The British Empire in India,
00:04:17.040 which was to be painfully built up in the course of the next three centuries, owes its origins
00:04:22.340 to the charter granted by Queen Elizabeth to a group of London merchants and financiers in the
00:04:28.500 year 1600. The young men who now rose to prominence in the court of the aging queen plagued their
00:04:36.340 mistress to allow them to try their hand in many enterprises. The coming years resounded with
00:04:41.920 attacks upon the forces and allies of Spain throughout the world. Expeditions to Cadiz,
00:04:47.540 to the Azores, into the Caribbean Sea and the Low Countries and in support of the Huguenots
00:04:53.220 to the northern coasts of France. The story is one of confused running fights conducted with
00:04:59.500 slender resources and culminating in a few great moments. The war against Spain, which had never
00:05:05.280 been officially declared, extended its heavy burden into the first year of the reign of
00:05:10.080 Elizabeth's successor, who would be James, James I, already King of Scotland at that point.
00:05:16.260 The policy of the English government was to distract the enemy in every quarter of the world 0.69
00:05:21.060 and by subsidizing the Protestant elements in the Low Countries and in France to prevent any
00:05:27.200 concentration of force against themselves. At the same time, England intervened to prevent the
00:05:33.160 Spaniards from seizing ports on the Norman and Breton coasts, which might be used as bases for
00:05:38.900 another invasion. As a result of these continued, though rather meagre efforts, the slow victory of
00:05:44.600 the Dutch in Holland and the Huguenots in France brought its reward. The eventual triumph of Henry 1.00
00:05:50.560 of Nevers, the Protestant champion and heir to the French throne, was due as much to his acceptance
00:05:56.640 of the Catholic faith as to victories in the field. Paris, as he is supposed to have said,
00:06:03.660 was worth a mass, a Catholic mass. His decision put an end to the French religious wars and removed
00:06:11.000 the danger to England of the Spanish-backed monarch in Paris. The Dutch two were beginning 0.93
00:06:16.040 to hold their own. The island was at last secure. Our island. But there was no way of delivering a 0.99
00:06:22.340 decisive stroke against Spain. The English government had no money for further efforts.
00:06:27.060 The total revenues of the crown hardly exceeded £300,000 a year, including the fruits of taxation
00:06:34.100 granted by Parliament. Just to put that into perspective, one single treasure ship from the
00:06:39.780 New World to Spain could have that much money on it. In fact, more, much more. Drake took one
00:06:46.680 particular Spanish ship laden with silver and gold, and it was much more than that. One ship's
00:06:53.480 worth of treasure from the New World back to Spain. So it puts in perspective just really how
00:06:59.000 much money, if nothing else, Spain had compared to England at this point. Churchill goes on saying,
00:07:05.860 out of this sum all expenses of court and government had to be met the cost of defeating
00:07:11.760 the armada is reckoned to have amounted to 160 000 pounds and the netherlands expedition for
00:07:18.500 expeditionary force at one stage was calling for 126 000 pounds a year the light of enthusiasm
00:07:25.400 slowly faded out in 1595 riley sir walter riley again tried his hand this time in search of el
00:07:32.680 dorado in guyana but his expedition brought no profits home if anyone's interested i've got a
00:07:38.680 whole long form episode just about the life and adventures of sir walter riley you'll have to look
00:07:44.440 back through the the catalog a bit there but it does exist a whole long form bit of content just
00:07:50.340 about sir walter riley okay churchill continues saying at the same time drake sir francis drake
00:07:57.040 and the veteran Hawkins, now in his 60s, set out on a last voyage. Hawkins fell ill and his fleet
00:08:05.280 was anchored off Puerto Rico. He died in his cabin. Drake, cast down by the death of his old patron,
00:08:13.740 sailed on to attack the rich city of Panama. With a dash of his former spirit, he swept into the
00:08:19.760 bay of Nombre de Dios. But conditions were now very different. The early days had gone forever,
00:08:26.200 i.e. being able to catch the Spanish completely off guard and sucker punch them because they never 1.00
00:08:30.600 expected an English warship to just turn up on the Spanish main in South America or Central America 0.55
00:08:38.280 or the Caribbean. Now they did expect it. So the old days were gone forever. The Spanish government
00:08:43.640 in the new world was well equipped and well armed. The raid was beaten off, the English fleet put out
00:08:48.840 to sea, and in January 1596 Sir Francis Drake, having assumed his armour to meet death like a
00:08:54.840 a soldier, expired in his ship. John Stowe, a contemporary English chronicler, writes of him,
00:09:01.060 quote, he was as famous in Europe and America as Tamerlane in Asia and Africa, end quote.
00:09:08.380 That's Timer and Elaine, one of the greatest warlords of all time. Churchill continued saying,
00:09:13.160 as the conflict with Spain drew inconclusively on and both sides struck out at each other in
00:09:20.300 ever-growing offensive exhaustion. The heroic age of sea fights passed away. One epic moment
00:09:27.060 had survived in the annals of the English race, the last fight of the Revenge, a ship called the
00:09:33.120 Revenge, at the Flores in the Azores. In the year 1591, says Bacon, was the memorable fight of an
00:09:40.840 English ship called the Revenge, under the command of Sir Richard Grenville. Memorable, I say, even
00:09:47.880 beyond credit and to the height of some heroic fable and though it was a defeat yet it exceeded 0.91
00:09:54.120 a victory being like the act of samson that killed more men at his death than he had done in the time
00:10:00.780 of all his life this ship for the space of 15 hours sat like a stag amongst hounds at bay and
00:10:08.200 was sieged and fought with in turn by 15 great ships of spain part of a navy of 55 ships in all
00:10:15.220 the rest all abettors looking on far off and amongst the 15 ships that fought the great
00:10:21.440 San Philippo was one a ship of 1500 ton prince of the 12 sea apostles which was right glad when
00:10:30.360 she was shifted off from the revenge this brave ship the revenge being manned only by 200 soldiers
00:10:36.580 and marines whereof 80 lay sick yet nevertheless after a fight maintained and was said of 15 hours
00:10:43.880 and two ships of the enemy sunk by her side besides many more torn and battered and great
00:10:49.620 slaughter of men never came to be entered but was taken by composition the enemies themselves having
00:10:55.300 in admiration the virtue of the commander and the whole tragedy of that ship end quote
00:11:00.280 Churchill goes on saying it is well to remember the ordinary seamen who sailed in ships sometimes
00:11:06.580 as small as 20 tons into the wastes of the north and south atlantic ill-fed and badly paid on risky
00:11:13.660 adventures backed by inadequate capital. These men faced death in many forms, death by disease,
00:11:19.800 death by drowning, death by Spanish pikes and guns, death by starvation and cold on uninhabited
00:11:25.340 coasts, death in the Spanish prisons. The admiral of the English fleet, Lord Howard of Effingham,
00:11:31.300 spoke their epitaph, and Effingham was supposed to have said, God send us to sea in such a company
00:11:36.640 together again when need is, end quote. It's an interesting point, very brave men. Sometimes
00:11:43.200 Desperate men though
00:11:44.280 I talked about this a bit
00:11:45.260 I've got a previous epoch
00:11:47.480 Talking about Magellan 1.00
00:11:49.360 And of course he's Portuguese
00:11:51.360 And Spanish Portuguese
00:11:52.900 And it's a slightly earlier time
00:11:55.920 And different conditions
00:11:57.520 But the fact still remains
00:11:58.980 You might ask yourself
00:12:00.820 If it's so dangerous
00:12:02.040 And it was
00:12:02.720 Why would anyone do it?
00:12:04.860 Well, the same reason
00:12:06.580 Anyone does anything really dangerous
00:12:08.940 One, for the sheer love of it
00:12:11.500 Because you're sort of fearless
00:12:12.800 and you're in love with adventure and the sea or you're actually very very desperate you're very
00:12:20.300 very very poor you're running from the police or the authorities rather and it's a way to escape
00:12:27.380 it's it's either you're going to get thrown in prison tortured executed or you're just going
00:12:34.540 to die of starvation of penury well there's a way out it's an extremely dangerous way out
00:12:39.940 but you could become a sailor or a seaman you could allow yourself one way or another to be
00:12:46.880 pressed gang pressed into onto a ship and well at least you're you'll get meals at least that
00:12:54.400 and yeah a lot of people running away from whatever in their life and so you're desperate
00:13:00.680 but also there are those types that and have always there has always been these types that
00:13:06.740 just love the sea, the open sea. It's like they're calling in life. Or it's the way they've been
00:13:15.840 raised and it's all they know. Their only profession is sailing and it's all they know and they sort of
00:13:21.860 have to take the risks. And then people that just love adventure, fall in love with the idea of going
00:13:28.120 to a new world and seeing things hardly anyone's ever seen before, seeing things that if you don't
00:13:34.700 take that risk, you certainly will never see wondrous things. Some people just love an adventure.
00:13:40.080 Churchill continues saying this, quote, victory over Spain was the most shining achievement of
00:13:46.180 Elizabeth's reign, but by no means the only one. The repulse of the Armada had subdued religious 0.91
00:13:51.880 dissension at home. Events which had swung England towards Protestantism while the Catholic danger 0.91
00:13:58.900 was impending swung her back to the Anglican settlement when the peril vanished in the smoke
00:14:04.440 of the burning armada at Gravelines. A few months later, in a sermon at St Paul's Cross,
00:14:10.820 Richard Bancroft, who was later to be Archbishop of Canterbury, attacked the Puritan theme with
00:14:16.820 the confidence of a man who was convinced that the Anglican Church was not a political contrivance,
00:14:22.380 but a divine institution. He took the only line on which the defence of the Church could be
00:14:28.160 sustained with an enthusiasm equal to that of its assailants. It was not, quote, the religion set 0.52
00:14:35.140 forth by her majesty, quote, but the church of the apostles still subsisting by virtue of the
00:14:41.540 episcopal succession. Again, to a modern Catholic and a modern Protestant, that's sort of blurring
00:14:47.160 the lines, isn't it, in various ways. The point here really is that the Church of England is,
00:14:53.240 of course not Catholic in any strict sense, just simply not Catholic, but also very much at odds
00:14:59.980 with hardline Protestantism, extreme, what you might call extreme Puritanism, very, very hardline
00:15:09.660 Lutherans, very, very hardline Calvinists, Anabaptists, all these types of, all these stripes
00:15:14.960 of Protestantism. It's also not that. So Elizabeth is really continuing Henry VIII's style
00:15:24.740 of religion where, okay, we're Protestants, we don't accept Rome, we don't accept the
00:15:31.080 ultimate authority of the Pope, but nonetheless our style of Protestantism is relatively close
00:15:37.300 to Catholicism. And if Catholics are our enemies, spiritually, in the sense of the
00:15:45.380 doctrine, religious doctrine, well so too are hardline Puritans. There was much to 0.91
00:15:50.920 be feared and resented and kept an eye on as Catholics. So yeah, a middle way, 0.99
00:15:58.180 a middle way, Churchill continues saying. But Bancroft saw also that to maintain
00:16:02.980 the calls, a better type of clergy was needed, men of, quote, solid learning, quote, and such he set
00:16:09.120 himself to provide. If he had lived, Clarendon wrote a century later, he would quickly have
00:16:15.860 extinguished all that fire in England which had been kindled at Geneva, by Geneva he's talking
00:16:21.380 about Calvary, Churchill goes on, but the fire was still dangerously smouldering when Elizabeth died.
00:16:26.940 Nevertheless the church as she had nursed to strength was a very different body from the
00:16:33.860 half-hearted and distracted community of her early years more confident more learned far less
00:16:40.940 inclined to compromise with dissidents within or separatists without strong in the attachment
00:16:47.460 of thousands to whom its liturgy had become dear by habit and who thought of it as the church into
00:16:53.940 which they had been baptized. Their devotion to the Church of England as a sacred institution
00:16:59.380 was as profound and sincere as the attachment of the Calvinist to his presbytery, or the
00:17:06.020 Independent to his congregation. And, bitter as the coming divisions were to be, we're not that
00:17:12.960 far away from the Civil War and various religious disputes that were hard baked into that, really,
00:17:19.100 That's what Churchill's talking about here
00:17:21.120 As bitter as the coming divisions were to be
00:17:24.260 England united in prizing Elizabeth's service to her people and to religion
00:17:29.540 Queen Elizabeth of famous memory, Oliver Cromwell called her
00:17:33.820 And added, we need not be ashamed to call her so
00:17:37.240 Churchill goes on saying
00:17:39.300 And those whose memories went back to the dark years of disaster and persecution
00:17:44.520 Who had seen the Spanish peril growing till it broke in ruins
00:17:48.280 could hardly fail to re-echo in their hearts the majestic utterance of Richard Hooker author of the
00:17:56.000 classic justification of the Elizabethan church and that book was called of the laws of ecclesiastical
00:18:02.000 polity and he said or he wrote as by the sword of God and Gideon was sometime the crier of the
00:18:09.140 people of Israel so it might deservedly be at this day the joyful song of innumerable multitudes
00:18:15.560 and the true inscription style or title of all churches yet standing within this realm by the
00:18:23.460 goodness of almighty god and his servant elizabeth we are end quote churchill goes on saying by now
00:18:30.100 the men who had governed england since the 1550s you know with elizabeth well from before elizabeth
00:18:36.840 but through the elizabethan age in the privy council all her closest advisors they were passing
00:18:42.120 from power and success to their graves they were dying of old age quite as simple as that church
00:18:48.060 says leicester had died in the last days of 1588 walsingham in 1590 and burley in 1598 the 15 years
00:18:57.280 which followed the armada are dominated by other figures war with spain had set a premium on
00:19:04.100 martial virtues young and eager men like walter riley and robert devereau earl of essex quarreled
00:19:10.560 for permission to lead the enterprises against the Spaniards. The Queen hesitated. She knew that
00:19:16.680 the security she had striven for all her life was very fragile. She knew the danger of provoking
00:19:21.880 the might of Spain, backed as it was by all the wealth of the Indies. She was growing old and out
00:19:27.760 of touch with the younger generation, and her quarrel with Essex marked and revealed her changing
00:19:33.080 mood. Essex was Leicester's stepson, and Leicester brought him into the circle of the court. He found
00:19:39.440 the government in the hands of the cautious Cecils, William, Lord Burley, and his son Robert.
00:19:45.260 The Queen's favour had lighted upon the hard, handsome, and ambitious captain of the guard,
00:19:51.420 Sir Walter Riley. Essex was the younger and the more fiery, and he soon displaced the captains
00:19:57.620 in the affections of Elizabeth. He too was ambitious and set out to create his own party
00:20:03.540 in Corkton Council and subdue the influence of the Cecils. He found support in the Bacon Brothers, 0.82
00:20:09.440 Anthony and Francis, sons of the Lord Keeper, Nicholas Bacon, who had earlier in the reign
00:20:15.200 been a colleague and brother-in-law to Burleigh. The young nephews were discontented with their
00:20:21.300 uncle's lack of attention. They were dangerous enemies and Essex was a convenient figurehead
00:20:26.460 for thrusting a more forward policy upon the Queen. So the story of intrigue and the Queen's
00:20:32.240 favourites, who was or wasn't her favourite and how capricious she could be, how changeable
00:20:38.580 And how everything, a whole career, a whole life
00:20:41.360 Or a whole faction, a whole political faction
00:20:43.580 Could rise or fall, swim or sink
00:20:47.180 On the strength of whether she just happened to like them or not
00:20:51.920 Churchill goes on
00:20:53.220 They had both served in the embassy
00:20:54.940 The Bacon brothers, Francis and Antony
00:20:57.240 They had both served in the embassy in Paris
00:20:59.820 And like Walsingham, had built up an admirable intelligence service
00:21:03.360 It was with their help that Essex became an expert on foreign affairs
00:21:07.140 and showed the queen that he had ability as well as charm in 1593 he was made a privy councillor
00:21:13.540 relations with spain were again becoming tense ethics soon headed the war party in the council
00:21:19.200 and once the old lord treasurer pulled a prayer book out of his pocket and shaking a finger at
00:21:25.600 his young opponent read out the verse bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their
00:21:31.340 days end quote bit of a harsh rebuke isn't it in 1596 an expedition was sent against cadiz under
00:21:39.100 the joint command of essex and riley in the sea fight for the harbor riley was the outstanding
00:21:45.060 leader the spanish fleet was burned and the town lay open to the english crews essex was the hero
00:21:50.920 of the shore fight it was a brilliant combined operation and cadiz was held by the english for
00:21:55.940 fortnight. The fleet returned home triumphant, but to Elizabeth's regret, little the richer.
00:22:02.200 During its absence, Robert Cecil had become Secretary of State. Victory at Cadiz heightened
00:22:07.560 the popularity of Essex among the younger members of the court and throughout the country. The Queen
00:22:12.240 received him graciously, but with secret misgivings. Was he the incarnation of the spirit of this new
00:22:18.140 generation, whose rash eagerness she feared? Would the young men look to him rather than to her as
00:22:24.100 their leader. For the moment all went well. Essex was made master of the ordnance. He was given
00:22:29.840 command of an expedition to intercept a further armada now gathering in the ports of western
00:22:34.980 Spain. In the summer of 1597 it seemed that another quote enterprise of England quote was
00:22:41.140 about to sail. Another Spanish armada to try and invade England. Seemed like that might happen.
00:22:45.700 We hope you enjoyed that video and if you did please head over to lotusseaters.com
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00:22:54.100 Thank you.