Unlike 1588, the Armada Year, 1578 has not endured in the national memory. But to those alive at the time, and especially those in charge of affairs - committed, 'forward' Protestants - it was a critical moment of making or marring. If 1588 was 1940, 1578 was 1938; the Netherlands, in revolt against its rulers, Czechoslovakia; the Spanish tyrant, Nazi Germany. As for the response of England's Queen to this crisis, it was a prevaricating kind of appeasement, rather than the bold interventionism which many of her advisers favoured. 'Her majesty deals so coldly in these causes,' wrote Sir Francis Walsingham, who did not believe in the likelihood of peace in his time.

LRB 3 April 1997 | PDF Download