English Intervention and the Pattern of Revolt

Abstract

On 23 February 1587 the House of Commons listened to a rousing speech by the Member for Warwick. Job Throckmorton was a learned Puritan zealot, commanding a rich flow of invective with which he drenched all those whom he supposed to be the mortal enemies of England, its Queen and the true religion. Successively and with relish, he excoriated the ‘filthiness of life’ of Catherine de Medici and her offspring; ‘the beast of Rome with a mark on his forehead’;Philip of Spain, licentious and incestuous; the Scottish Dame (‘by the good Providence of God brought low to the dust’) and her son ‘the young imp of Scotland’, to name only a few. England was surrounded by the powers of darkness. ‘Whither then,’ he cried, ‘shall we direct our course ? The very finger of God directs us to the Low Countries, as though to say: “There only is the means of your safety, there only is the passage laid open to you, there only, and nowhere else, is the vent of your commodities.” ’ And much more.¹